French cities seem to have a thing for lighting and lighting effects. Montréal is a French city at heart, and you especially see that at night. It can be spectacular.
There are commissioned lighting displays and events, and there are just the things people do to decorate the buildings, windows, and streets. In Vieux Port, there are videos projected on the walls, ghostly parades of a reconstructed past flittering by the cars and the couples. Montréal at night is wonderful fun.
And there’s a lot of snow. And it too can be beautiful, and after a week of cars and garbage and melt, it can be absolutely disgusting. Montréal is not the cleanest of cities. But fresh snow at night, or fresh snow during the day, is marvelous.