Montreal is as scythed by freeways as any U.S. city, and it helps to be prepared to deal with the sudden shift from quiet countryside to confusing urban madness. If you’ve followed the rural route across Quebec from Ottawa, you enter the city from the northwest, on the Hwy-640 Autoroute; the freeway route from Ottawa brings you in on the Hwy-40 Autoroute, straight into downtown.
Any east–west freeway you find yourself on will cross the Hwy-15 Autoroute, the main route between Montreal and the U.S. border. Vermont is a quick 30 miles south of Montreal; after crossing the U.S. border, take the second exit off the I-87 freeway, and head east along US-11/US-2 to Rouses Point, New York, at the north end of Lake Champlain, to rejoin our two-lane road trip route. Between Vermont and the Canadian border, US-2 nips briefly and uneventfully across the northeast corner of New York State, crossing the international border on the I-87 freeway between the United States and Quebec.
