Le Village is a downtown neighbourhood that throws a roof over its main street every summer and turns the road itself into the room. Rue Sainte-Catherine Est, closed to cars from late spring, a coloured canopy strung overhead, terrasses across the asphalt — it's the most generous use of a street in the city. Under three kilometres, mostly along one of them.
Start at Beaudry station, the only metro entrance in Montreal wearing the rainbow on its glass columns, and step straight onto Sainte-Catherine Est. Then look up: the summer installation that strings hundreds of thousands of resin balls overhead — the city's most photographed image — changes design between seasons but always fills the sky above the street.
Walk west down the middle of the car-free promenade, past the terrasses and the music, to Place Émilie-Gamelin, the planted square where the Village meets the rest of downtown. Carry on a little into the everyday eastern centre — the shops, the UQAM blocks — to feel the contrast with what you just walked under. End at Berri-UQAM, three lines under one roof, where the city opens back up.
