What to do in Montreal

[tolowyn 0]

Ok, so lots of you are coming into Montreal for your interviews. A lot of you will be here for a decent chunk of time, so i thought I'd create a page of interesting places to see and visit to in Montreal. I'll give the locations, or at least metro stops of where a lot of these places are. If anyone ever has any questions you can always message me and i'll help you out as best i can. I've lived in Montreal my whole life and know the area pretty well. The best way to get anywhere is by metro. so first i recommend that you go down into one of the metros (subway) and get an Opus bus card. This is a rechargeable card that you can load with tickets, day passes, weekly passes, or monthly passes. Getting the card and day a three day pass, instead of paying each individual time is really worth it. you can save a lot of money by doing it this way. or with the weekly pass. This lets you ride the bus and metro system as many times as you wish. If you pay each individual time,(same with the "pack" of tickets) the transfer you get is only good for 2 hours and you cant use it to get back into the metro system. so the weekly or three day pass is really very worth it.The price for one ticket or entry into the bus or metro is 3.00$ for regular fare. and 2.50$ for kids. Children under 3 years of age are free.

Okay transport info out of the way, lets get down to the business of what to do and see....

Montreal has a lot of museums to visit if you like that sort of thing. All conveniently located in the downtown area.

*McCord museum-690 Sherbrooke Street West-Metro McGill (Green Line)- "It celebrates Montréal life past and present—its people, its artisans, its communities, its metropolitan area."

*Montreal Museum of Fine Arts-1379 Sherbrooke Street West-Metro Guy Concordia, or Peel (Green Line). Also an easy walk from McGill metro if you go right down Sherbrook.- This Museum promots the work of Canadian and international artists past and present.

*Museum of Contemporary Arts-185 Sainte-Catherine Street West-Metro Place-Des-Arts (Green Line)- Canada's premier museum devoted exclusively to contemporary art,it's a superb place to discover the wealth of Québec creativity and leading international trends.

*Canadian Centre for Architecture-1920, rue Baile, between St-Marc and rue Du Fort.Metro-Guy-Concordia (Green Line).- "this museum is to promote public understanding, and widening thought and debate on architecture, its history, theory, practice, and role in society today"

Montreal has a lot of other museums as well but i wont waste all the time tell you each of them.

Other cool and interesting places to walk around and see the sites of montreal are

*Old Montreal and The old Port-anywhere around Saint-François-Xavier Street,Place Jacques-Cartier and De la Commune est-Metro Place-D'Armes(Orange Line). Theres always interesting things to do and see around here. Also you so have to stop and eat a Beaver Tail while your hear. It's a pastry junk food kinda thing. so yummy!

*Botanical Gardens and Insectarium-4101 Rue Sherbrooke Est-Metro Pie-IX (Green Line) This place is huge. If you plan on visiting plan this to be a days trip. Throughout October they are having a Lanterns Festival. It looks really pretty.

*Biodome-4777 Avenue Pierre-de Coubertin-Metro Viau (Green Line)-This is the closest thing montreal has to a zoo. It's fun for kids. Takes about 2 hours to go through the whole thing if you take your time. Also located right near the Olympic Stadium which you can tour and take an elevator right to the top and see the island of montreal.

*LaRonde- and Ile Sainte-Hélène, 22 Chemin Macdonald Metro-Longueuil(Yellow Line) This is montreals amusement park. It's also a neat little park and island that was created by the earth that was left over when they created the metro tunnels. Nice place to walk around in the park and relax, gives you a different perspective of the rapids and river. Laronde is now owned by Six-Flags, It has some cool rides, aswel as some fun haunted houses and activities for Halloween. Because it is "off season" now, it's only open on the weekends until October 30th. oh and it get real cold over there especially up on the rides.

*Mount-Royal- ya gotta check out the look-out and get an amazing view of the island from up here.Easiest way i can tell you to get here is Metro-Guy Concordia and bus 166. it's approximately 7 stops up the hill and just past the hospital. You can walk straight up the hill from Guy metro but it's long and the hill is a lil steep. You can also get here from Metro McGill, walk straight up University street, turn left at the top of the hill (Avenue des Pins) walk along this street you'll see stairs going up to the mountain.

Foods. Places you must eat at.

Dunns smoked meat.-1249 Metcalfe St (Metro Peel)People rave about Montreal's smoked meat. Check it out yourself.

Bagels. K so apparently Montreal has like the best bagels anywhere. There are a lot of places to get these amazing bagels. and here area few.

St-Viateur-263 Rue Saint Viateur Ouest, Metro Du Parc (Blue Line)-The bagel shop operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and serves over 12000 bagels a day

Fairmount-74 Avenue Fairmount Ouest,-Metro Laurier (orange line) Fairmount Bagel is the original Montreal bagel bakery in Montreal, Quebec

LeFaubourge-1616 Sainte-Catherine Street West-Metro Guy-Concordia.They have bagels here to and iv heard their good. but i honestly don't know. i know you can watch them being made through the windows from the street, its kinda neat.

Montreal Poutine-161 St-Paul E- located in the old port.Metro Place D'armes (Orange line). When in Montreal you MUST try a poutine!

ONoir-1631 Ste-Catherine West-Metro Guy Concordia (Green Line)-This is a resteraunt you so need to check out. 5% of O.NOIR's profits are given to support local associations that serve blind and visually impaired people. Just about all the staff that work in this restaurant are blind. Reservations are a must. The experience is like none other and food is amazing! The whole dinning experience is in the dark. Yes pitch black dark to give you a sense of how blind people live. Its so much fun and something you’ll never forget!

Cresent Street Metro Guy Concordia (Green Line) a street full of bars and brewrys

Saint-Laurent blvd metro st-Laurent-(Green Line) clubs, shopping and bars another hot night life spot, and day time shopping and caffe’s

if i think of any other interesting place's i'll add them and if there's places iv forgotten please add them as well. have fun and good luck to all of you.

[Oksana & Max 94]

Wow,

You really took time to write it up. Amazing!!!

I lived in Montreal and visit a lot of places, but you really provided some other things that I might want to do, when will be back there sometime next year.

Great Job!!!

[Udella&Wiz 325]

Good idea!

[Flames9_RN 358]

Good idea!

Mtl is well known for great Strip clubs!!

[Darnell 8,478]

Don't forget the Poutine Tour !! For some of you, this'll be the last chance you have to get some decent poutine.

Oh ok, last chance to get some EXCELLENT poutine.

[Candexan 2]

Thank you for all the info! I'm only going to be there with 1 free day. Also, by myself, so I don't think I will do much sight seeing. Although the smoked beef and poutine sound good! lol! I'm staying downtown at the Quality Inn on Crescent St. I want to see Notre-Dame Basilica that's about it.

Hoping for good weather but more importantly, a good interview!

[gallantjosh 0]

Any easy way to get to Chinatown on the Metro?

[canafornia 7]

Thanks for posting this, what a great idea!

As a fellow Montrealer I have a few contributions;

- if you do not buy an opus card and choose to buy regular tickets, don't throw them away - you may be asked for proof of passage. A friend visiting me from the UK got a big fine for not having his.

- On wednesday evenings, The museum of contemporary art is free and the fine art museum is half price.

- La Banquise, on rachel near park lafontaine, also has great poutine and they are open 24/7

gallantjosh, chinatown is within walking distance of champ de mars metro

Edited October 12, 2011 by canafornia

[gallantjosh 0]

Thanks canafornia! I am in desperate need of some Nori, not easy to find in the Maritimes and not easy to miss after living in Korea!

[The_Dude 1,142]

Make sure you visit Schwartz's Deli, it's worth it! I would any Americans who go along with your spouse/fiance to keep your mouth shut and let your significant other do all the talking, unless you speak french fluently. I had an awful experience where the police gave me wrong directions (excatly opposite of where my hotel was), and was taunted walking outside a restaurant.

[cananner 2]

I live in Montreal, so if anyone is flying/driving in by themselves and wants to go for coffee and vent about the visa process, I'd be happy to meet up!

Edited October 13, 2011 by cananner

[CDN2US 10]

Any easy way to get to Chinatown on the Metro?

We like to take the green line to St Laurent and walk toward Old Montreal. Cuts right through Chinatown.

Gah, I love Montreal!

[La Souris 19]

I miss Montreal... and I'm lucky that I can go back often. Hopefully, I'll be there next weekend

My personal favourites:

Coffee at Caffe Art Java

Bread and pastries - Première Moisson

Poutine at La Banquise

Cheese momos at OM (St-Laurent, South of Mont-Royal)

Bagels - St-Viateur

Mediterranean at Petit Alep

Indian at Malhi Sweets or Dev

All things chocolate at Juliette et Chocolat

Walking on St-Denis and in the Old Montreal

Visit at La Grande Bibliothèque

Baths at Le Scandinave

[Stuart and Thea 95]

I live in Montreal, so if anyone is flying/driving in by themselves and wants to go for coffee and vent about the visa process, I'd be happy to meet up!

Cananner I'd totally love to meet up for coffee... latte actually if you can recommend a good barrista in the rue St Denis area? I'll be there from the 20th to the 27th, and while I'm not going alone, there WILL be time in there to meet a VJ friend. (or more if we can make it a group event??)

Thanks for putting up this list, it's got some excellent ideas, esp about the Wed night museum freebies! I'll definitely check those out.

Anyone have any suggestions for shopping? I particularly want to look for a faux fur stole to wear with my dress, and a fascinator and birdcage veil. Any good bridal supply shops? or anything like?

[La Souris 19]

Anyone have any suggestions for shopping? I particularly want to look for a faux fur stole to wear with my dress, and a fascinator and birdcage veil. Any good bridal supply shops? or anything like?

Faux fur accessories you can probably find downtown, I would go to Simons: http://www.simons.ca/ It is really close to the consulate, five-minute walk or so. Harricana has beautiful things made of recycled fur, might be a little more expensive though http://www.harricana.qc.ca

If you are looking for more traditional wedding accessories, St-Hubert Street is where you want to go, you can take the metro to Jean-Talon or Beaubien (orange line) and you will find at least 15 wedding apparel stores. If not more. http://en.maplaza.ca/

Good luck with everything.