Rue Sainte-Catherine

This was my first stop when I visited Montréal. I was expecting it to be a beautiful shopping district like Newbury street in Boston. I was wrong. If anything it’s comparable to soho in New York. The street is just okay looking, nothing special. Parking is expensive but it is available and not too difficult to find. What bothered me the most was the smell of cigarette that was all over the place and hard to avoid. The shops are mostly similar to American stores. I would not recommend it to tourists. If anything go downstairs to the underground mall that’s connected to this street. It’s way better.

Rue Sainte-​Catherine is one of the more popular streets in Montréal. We took a nice long walk along its route. When we reached the sketchy area we turned back to the more touristy area.
Like any other street in a large city, this street has it’s good areas and not so good areas. Best to stick to the main part with all the nice shops and restaurants, if you are a tourist.
That’s all I’ve got to say.

Chances are if you have a shopping mall by you, you’ve got a better selection of stores selling items at prices that are cheaper than what you will find on Rue Sainte-​Catherine.
For all those that say this «attraction» is a must-​see, I would suggest that you need to expand your horizons as this clearly falls into the «must-​not» category of things to do while on vacation. This street is dirty, it smells (like garbage and urine), is somewhat depressing/​run-​down in parts and I certainly didn’t travel all the way to Montréal to go shopping at Foot Locker, mobile phone outlets, pawn shops or whatever other stores I could find locally and without having to pay Montréal’s 15% sales tax.
Make no mistake; this is not Oxford Street in London or Newbury Street in Boston. Instead, Rue Sainte-​Catherine is as unremarkable as it is underwhelming. Spend your time and money elsewhere, as Montréal has so much more to offer.

Pedestrian friendly.
On Ste. Catherine, you will find some of the most sought after restaurants, shopping areas. It’s perhaps one of the busiest streets in Montréal with tons of street festivals, delicious restaurants, shops and boutiques. In a way, Ste. Catherine always reminded me of a mini-​Fifth Avenue of New York and in a way — better, it has some of the unique labels from European brands that cannot be found easily in the States.

LA rue pour faire du shopping, il y a toutes les grandes enseignes des produits électroniques/​de technologies aux vêtements. C’est l’une des rues les plus importantes donc ou que vous soyez, vous allez surement y être pour quelques achats.
Si vous êtes Parisiens et que vous êtes en train de lire ça; je vais juste dire que c’est l’équivalent à notre chère rue Rivoli qui va de Saint-​Paul à la Concorde mais en plus grand!
Si vous êtes au Canada en mois de Juillet, né ratez pas la parade de Canada’s day qui est se tient sur cette rue, et oui oui vous allez voir des Canadian Mounties avec leurs uniformes officiels sur des chevaux !

La rue sainte Catherine est LA rue pour faire du shopping, en fait c’est un des axes centraux de la ville. De ce fait il y a un grand nombre de restaurants, de boutiques en tout genres (H&M, AppleStore, Starbucks…).
Cette rue est interminable donc si vous cherchez une boutique spécifique c’est préférable de regarder quelle station de métro est le plus prêt. Je pense qu’on peut y passer sa journée à faire les boutiques.

La rue sainte Catherine est LA rue pour faire du shopping,
en fait c’est un des axes centraux de la ville. De ce fait il y a un grand
nombre de restaurants, de boutiques en tout genres (H&M, AppleStore,
Starbucks). Cette rue est interminable donc si vous cherchez une
boutique spécifique c’est préférable de regarder quelle station de métro est le
plus prêt. Je pense qu’on peut y passer sa journée à faire les boutiques.

Rue idéale pour le shopping. Toutes les grandes enseignes y sont localisées sur cette grande artère. On y trouve aussi des boutiques souvenirs, des restos, bars etc. Passage obligé quand on vient à Montréal!

This street goes from ghetto, to somewhat less ghetto, to high end shopping, to low end shopping, to red light district, to shopping, to ghetto, to arts, to ghetto, to some unknown stretch! Between one end to the other there are a bunch of restaurants scattered around.
One night I was walking down the street with a friend and one of the guys working the strip club doors ran up to us to ask us to go up to their strip club. A guy working a couple of doors down at another strip club ran up to us and told us to skip the other guys club because all the girls have crabs. I burst out laughing but my friend… she was grossed out and ran off.
You’ll find the same type of stretches on most big city main streets like pan handlers, sketchy people, restaurants and shopping and Rue Sainte-​Catherine is no different but you won’t get anything like what I mentioned above!

Looking for a Montréal experience? Look elsewhere– and I don’t mean that in a bad way, I mean that in a matter-​of-​fact way.
Rue Sainte Catherine resembles a typical street in a typical downtown area in a typical city– with chain stores that you can find in the US and other places in Canada. Great place to go shopping as a local; as a tourist, visit your own version of Rue Sainte Catherine back home and spend that time at places that are unique to Montréal.

It’s here, In this street that I spend lots of funny time during my trip ! lots of bar ! really cool stuff !

Artère principale de Montréal pour le shopping, sorties et culture alternative. Tout se passé ici.
Assez sale au demeurant, on se croirait presque à Paris!
(Voir photo ci-​dessous)
(Voir photo ci-​dessous)

Uh, there are a lot of stores here. But seriously, the Apple Store ain’t no better here than anywhere else. There are 3 ALDO shoe stores on this street, one in the Eaton mall and two others, like within a mile of each other. The Eaton mall is ok, ain’t nuthin special. As a tourist, I wouldn’t waste more than an hour or 2 on St. Catherine St. Go to Crescent or Rue. St. Laurent for nightlife or the old town.

C’est l’endroit à faire lorsque vous visitez Montréal.
Une rue super animée qui amèné sur le quartier Gay…
Il est plus drôle de s’y rendre la nuit, en particulier l’été.
Un des lieux incontournable est le cabaret: chez Mado !

Avec St-​Laurent, la rue Ste-​Catherine est l’une des plus importantes artères de Montréal et donc l’un des must-​see de la ville.
Contrairement à St-​Laurent qui est plutôt orienté petites boutiques et échoppes, Ste-​Catherine, elle, est clairement le domaine des grosses enseignes. Ainsi donc si vous cherchez un H&M, un Futureshop, Bedo ou autre Spirit et Levis stores, vous irez à Ste-​Catherine Ouest. Idem pour les complexes tels que Desjardins, le centre Eaton, La Baie, les Ailes, etc. A noter aussi que cette partie de la rue est parallèle à la partie souterraine de Montréal, donc accessible en métro à plusieurs niveaux entre Place des Arts et Atwater.
Le côté Est est ce que l’on appelle Le Village, le quartier gay de Montréal. C’est aussi une partie agréable à voir, moins orientée shopping, même si on y retrouve aussi quelques grosses enseignes. L’été cette partie là de la rue est entièrement piétonne et se transforme en une sorte de marché de plein air des plus plaisants.
Enfin, entre les deux, il y la partie de Ste-​Catherine que j’aime le moins, celle qui se situe entre le boulevard St-​Laurent et Berri-​UQAM sur la rue St-​Denis. On y rencontre trop de mendiants, marginaux et fêtards de la dernière heure à mon goût. Je n’ai jamais eu de problème jusqu’alors dans ce coin là, mais ça reste tout de même l’un des très rares spots où je né sentirai pas tranquille si je m’y retrouvais seule le soir.

La plus grande rue commerçante de la ville, boutiques, services et restaurants vous permettrons de magasiner à votre guise.

It may not be Oxford Street or Carnaby Street, but its still someplace that if you like shopping you’ll want to check out. For anyone else, it is a great central location where if you can find Rue Sainte-​Catherine, you can find your way anyplace else in the city.
That’s what I used it for. Whilst I love shopping, these are the same stores that I can find anyplace else and so I used it more as a compass point to navigate the rest of the city. I did like that the portion from Rue Berri to Rue Papineau is shut down to vehicular traffic and so becomes a pedestrian mall with restaurant patios spilling out onto the street and festivals taking over the road.
Make this one of your first stops in the city if you’re a tourist and you’ll be able to find your way around just fine!

I was told that St. Catherine St was the place to go for shopping so I headed down here to see what type of shopping Montréal had to offer. Unfortunately, I was disappointed in what I saw. There were the usual State stores such as H&M, Forever 21 and Aldo and then there are the Canadian stores such as The Bay, Roots, Jacob and Lululemon.
I guess when I heard shopping area/​district, I was expecting something like NYC’s SoHo area, SF’s Union Square area or Vancouver’s Robson St. It is a main street where you can find people hanging out and meeting up, but a shopping area it is not.

Crazy !!! Qué loco !!! Enorme !!!
La plus grande rue commerçante de Montréal mais surtout et ça, pour nous français, c’est assez incroyable et surprenant: il y a autant de magasins niveau rue que niveau souterrain !!! Et oui, avec de très basses températures l’hiver, nos cousins canadiens vivent «sous terre» !!! des km de galleries commerciales traversent la ville. Vou sortez du métro mais né remontez jamais à la surface !!!
Génial, des heures de shopping !!!

A shopping and restuarant street which largely resembles every other in a Canadian city. Don’t be shocked to see the same stores over and over, or the same chains blocks from eachother. However, as a traveller it was a handy reference point and an easy go to.
I will note I believe it was called Christchurch Cathedral — it’s across the Bay in any event — this is a gorgeous old cathedral which makes the walk down through the crowds totally worth it.

la plus grande rue commercante de montréal avec des resto et de nombreuse boutique

The unavoidable main artery of Montréal. For the real experience, ignore everything west of St. Laurent. It’s a fairly generic downtown strip with the same stores you find everywhere else. If you head east of St. Laurent, it’s far more interesting. The sleazy vibe between St. Laurent and St. Denis is like pre-​Giuliani Times Square where junkies, punks, and prostitutes still reign supreme. Anyone who, like myself, has some kind of misplaced and confused nostalgia for pre-​gentrified and Disneyfied Midtown should check it out. Go while it’s still there since they’ve been threatening to transform the area into a generic tourist trap with the Quartier des Spectacles. Further east of St. Denis and it’s the Village which is also a pretty interesting place worth checking out.

La rue la plus commerçante de Montréal !
Elle est encore plus dingue en dessous: vous n’avez jamais vu des centres commerciaux souterrains aussi gigantesques comme ceux-​là.
Elle traverse le centre-​ville de part en part (ligne Métro vert), on y trouve en plus des centres commerciaux, des magasins, des restaurants qui né sont pas les plus bons de la ville, mais aussi des églises, des bars, des universités
Faites aussi un tour sur le boulevard Saint Laurent et né râter pas le quartier Red Light.
Vous devez y aller !

St. Catherine Street (now officially rue Sainte-​Catherine) is the main street for all your entertainment needs when you are in downtown Montréal. It is lined with so many places to shop, eat, learn and play.
Some highlights include H&M department store, Eaton Centre Mall, Dawson College, Mexx and Supersexe (one of the last remaining strip clubs). The street runs parallel to the largest segments of Montréal’s underground city.