By James Stone

It had never occurred to me that Montreal had been named after a mountain called Mount Royal. Since it is a French speaking city, the name 'Montreal' had been derived from the French, 'Mont Royal'. Hardly a puzzle worthy of the hieroglyph specialists, but a neat discovery for an Anglo Saxon dolt such as myself, I thought.

But it wasn't just the name of the mountain that attracted me to Montreal's inner city peak. According to the guide books it was once a volcano. There is apparently some debate about this, though. Today's inactive peak is situated in Montreal park which was landscaped by Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of Central Park in New York. Olmsted didn't landscape the volcano though.

It was July, but still fairly mild as I strolled into the park and up towards the peak. Unless you're into arctic expeditions, you do have to come to Montreal in the summer months. I heard that half the trees in this park were destroyed in 1998 during an ice storm. Sounds nasty. And I remember chatting to a girl from the more southerly Toronto, while I was in New York, and she remembered being at a funeral in Montreal one February. During the burial ceremony the blizzard had got so hard that people standing round were almost ready to jump in. I guess it's a shame the volcano is extinct - going on stories like that it sounds like the city could do with a little warming lava flow during the winter months.

As to be expected for such a big tourist attraction, it was an easy climb, and busy. It was worth it though. The view from the top down upon the city was spectacular. As well as being a huge cross at the peak, a little way down there was a circular plaza called Kondiaronk Belvedere. It had a brilliant view of downtown Montreal – which is a motley combination of North American skyline and older buildings that opt for a more sedate, European feel.

You could also see the dome of St Joseph's Oratory, one of the biggest cathedrals in the world.

"It is a lovely view, no?" a random fifty year old lady with a tight headscarf and what sounded like an eastern European accent said to me as I gazed out from the plaza.
"Yeah." I said. There was an awkward silence. "I never realised the city was named after this – the French for Mont Royal," I ventured.

The lady turned and looked me sternly in the eye. "It is not the French," she spat. Her black eyes sparkled. "In Italian, Mount Royal is Monte Reale. It is Italian, see?"