Montreal

Montreal gives travelers a French-speaking North American city with its own food and festival calendar. Its bagels, boiled in honey water and baked in wood-fired ovens at shops such as St-Viateur and Fairmount, are a different thing from New York's. Late June and early July bring the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, which Guinness World Records has recognized as the world's largest jazz festival. Ottawa is tidy and pleasant, with Parliament Hill and the national museums. Montreal is the better trip for nightlife, neighborhoods like the Plateau and Mile End, and a European feel without crossing the Atlantic. Winters are long and hard, so the festival months make the easiest introduction.