I do not travel very much these days, but when I do I travel without camera. That is mostly for the simple reason that the last camera I had broke three years ago and that since then, I have been neither bothered nor rich enough to buy myself a new one. I have started to like it though; for one thing, it forces you to look better at what you see, while thinking of how to describe it to those staying home.

I have always imagined cities of the new world to lack history. In a sense that is true of Montreal: the city wasn’t founded until the late 17th century and it is quite hard to find buildings from before 1900. For obvious reasons, it lacks a medieval centre, ruins of city walls and 16th-century market squares. Its roads are broad, long and, most of all, straight: it is possible to play chess or even go on a plan of the city. But it is not right to just blame this purely on unimaginative planning; then one would have ended up with the more ‘interesting’, yet so boring new towns of England and the Netherlands. Rather, Montreal does look and feel as if it is built by humans, only these humans were in a rush and had no time to wait centuries for a footpath to develop to a carriageway and, ultimately, to a two-lane road. A straight road is just the simplest and most natural way of going from A to B.

Although it does have some big skyscrapers, Montreal is not dominated by an extremely busy centre either, another prejudice I had against North American cities. In fact, despite being 30 times its size, Montreal on a Saturday does not feel much bigger than Exeter. If I had to describe the city in one word, I would use ‘friendly’: friendly bus drivers, friendly people in shops and cafés, friendly people on the street. Friendly about their language too: I had been warned I would have to speak French but, despite this being the first language for 80 per cent of the population, I did not meet anyone who wasn’t willing to speak English. It is a shame I couldn’t stay longer, though C. and I walked for at least ten miles through the city, so that at least I don’t have the feeling I have missed something essential. If he ever happens to be your guide —and I definitely recommend him— be sure to wear good shoes.

Before arriving in Montreal, I had already spent four and a half days in Ottawa. But that was for other reasons, doing hard yet rewarding work, which made me not leave the hotel at all. Five-star hotels look the same all over the world, with the only exception of the cookies they serve, which are three times as big on the other side of the pond. I did have a chance to walk through that city during my final hours in Canada and it does have some nice bits too, even if they might have been rather obviously copied from the capital of the old motherland. And while I think I like Montreal better, I am sure I would have enjoyed myself if I had had some more time to spend there.

But the best bit of all was just the being somewhere new: not just in a country hitherto unbeknown to me, but in a whole new continent. Where things are the same, yet subtly different at the same time: the lack of number plates on the fronts of cars; the prices in shops which exclude VAT; the traffic lights for pedestrians which show how much time was left to cross. These things, irrelevant as they may seem, are the best part of travelling.