The tourist areas of Montreal are mostly near each other, essentially downtown encompassing rue Sherbrooke, rue St. Catherine and Rene Levesque Boulevard....and Old Montreal.

Old Montreal is very lovely, with smaller boutique-style hotels. Downtown hotels tend to be your much larger chain hotels like Sheraton, Marriott, etc.

Whichever area you choose, they are within 20 minutes walking distance from each other, so it's difficult to make a "wrong" choice.

Thank you. I will go online now and try for a smaller hotel in Old Montreal. Great help!! Cheers, Julia

You haven't mentioned your budget, but Old Montreal is full of lovely hotels. Take a look at The Nelligan (my favorite - take a look at the TA reviews), Springhill Suites, Place D'Armes, Auberge de Vieux Port and so many more...Auberge de la Place Royale is a B&B that gets great reviews.

Also, take a look at this link:

www.tourisme-montreal.org/Offers/Summer

It lists some of the hotels that have a "sweet deal" promotion where you can get half off certain nights of your stay. This may make it more affordable for you.

Have fun!

My suggestion is to avoid downtown area. The quality of places is not good (unless you want to stay in hotels).

You will be able to find rooms in very clean houses for very reasonable prices. If you are looking for a very vibrant area, I suggest Plateau (around Mont-Royal, St-Denis, and St-Laurent streets). Other areas that are little calmer but still offer variety of cafes and restaurants are Outremont, Mile End, NDG, and Monkland Village.

Check the following sites for housing in Montreal:

http://montreal.en.craigslist.ca/

http://www.mcgill.ca/classified/housing/

Don't forget to check out Schwartz's.

http://www.schwartzsdeli.com/index_eng.html

They have the best smoked meat in the country.

Thanks heaps for all the information. I will have fun today following it all up with internet searches. We love this info almost as much as the real thing. Cheers fellow travellers, hope I can be of some use to others in the future, Julia from Australia