Daniel B.
Yelp
Parc du Mont-Royal or Mount Royal Park is like the Central Park of Montreal. Unlike several city parks, however, this one contains a mountain. It's a small mountain just west (only a couple blocks) of downtown Montreal. The city of Montreal got its name from Mount Royal. Pronounce it like "Mont Royale" and you'll see what I mean. Mont Royale, Montreal. The park is huge, covering almost 700 acres, and the mountain rises as high as 764 feet.
We stayed in an Airbnb on the east side of the park, pretty much on McGill University campus, on Aylmer St. We walked from our Airbnb, past Percival Molson Memorial Stadium and McTavish Reservoir, and hiked to one of the high points on the mountain: Chalet du Mont-Royal (https://www.yelp.com/biz/chalet-du-mont-royal-montr%C3%A9al). I highly recommend it. I'm not sure where else you can get such elevated and wide-sweeping views of the Montreal city skyline.
From where we started, at Pine Ave W and Peel St, the hike took us less than 45 minutes and it was a leisurely hike. We took breaks to rest and take in views as well as took a detour to see the Mount Royal Cross. The Mount Royal Cross is in an opposite direction, but not far from, the chalet. The Mount Royal Cross isn't giant like Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janiero, Brazil. It's a simple 36-foot-tall see-through cross with light bulbs on it. If you're headed to the chalet, you might as well check it out. The founder of Montreal, Paul de Chomedey, sieur de Maisonneuve, placed the original cross on Mount Royal in 1643 to thank God and the Virgin Mary from sparing the colony from flooding.
I think if you take a brisk, non-stop walk from where we started, you can reach the chalet in 20 minutes or less, certainly 30 minutes or less. We did encounter one nice city view on the way up and back down, between the chalet/cross and our starting point. The park, in general, was clean and not much differentiated it from other public parks in major cities. The trails were mostly dirt/gravel. There were benches throughout the park. On a Saturday evening around sunset, it was busy with a diverse mix of people -- locals, tourists, students, families, young, old, etc. You do have to climb a decent amount of stairs so I wouldn't recommend this hike for the elderly.
On the way down, the trails lacked adequate lighting, so we used the lights on our phones to help us see.