If you’ve got three days in Montreal, the official top-ten lists will tell you to ride the calèche around Place d’Armes, queue at Schwartz’s, and watch the sunset from the top of Mount Royal. Two of those are right. The calèche is overpriced, uncomfortable, and you spend the whole loop being apologized to by a horse that would clearly rather be in a field. Skip it. The other two? Go. And then do these other things, in roughly the order I’d send a friend who’s never been here.
In This Article
- 1. Wander Old Montreal on foot, not in a horse-drawn cart
- 2. Step inside Notre-Dame Basilica
- 3. Walk up Mount Royal (yes, in winter too)
- 4. Pick a side in the bagel war
- 5. Eat smoked meat at Schwartz’s, and decide if the queue was worth it
- 6. Spend a slow morning at Jean-Talon Market
- 7. Find the local market: Atwater, in Saint-Henri
- 8. Bike or walk the Lachine Canal
- 9. Drift around the Old Port (and the Grande Roue if you must)
- 10. Cross over to the Plateau and Mile End
- 11. Look up at Saint Joseph’s Oratory
- 12. Stare at Habitat 67
- 13. Go underground in winter (RÉSO and the Underground City)
- 14. Walk the Mural Festival blocks (any time of year)
- 15. Drink craft beer where Montrealers drink it
- And one more: the Botanical Garden if you have a fourth day
- How to actually fit it into a trip
What follows isn’t a ranking. It’s the list I keep coming back to when someone messages me a week before they fly in. Central things first, then a bit further out, then the ones that take a half-day commitment but pay you back. Most of it is walkable or one metro ride from wherever you’re staying. A few notes on what’s worth paying for and what isn’t, prices in CAD, the kind of detail you only get from someone who actually lives here and has to deal with the construction every spring.
1. Wander Old Montreal on foot, not in a horse-drawn cart
Vieux-Montréal (Old Montreal) is where the city started in 1642. The cobblestones are real, the buildings are mostly original stone, and you can lose two or three hours just wandering between Place d’Armes, rue Saint-Paul, and the Old Port without doing anything formal. The whole quarter is small enough that you don’t need a map, but big enough that you’ll keep finding little side streets you missed.
I’ve sketched a half-day route through the area in a separate Old Montreal walking itinerary if you want a stop-by-stop plan. For most people, though, the move is to start at Place d’Armes, walk down rue Notre-Dame to Place Jacques-Cartier, then drift toward the water. Pick a terrasse for a beer when your feet start complaining.
About the calèche. They run from a stand near Place d’Armes most of the year, and the going rate floats around 60 CAD for a short loop, more for the longer one. Locals don’t take them. The streets are too tight to enjoy from a slow-moving cart, the route circles the same blocks you can walk in fifteen minutes, and the horses spend a lot of the day standing in heat or cold on hard cobblestones. If you want a guided tour, do a free walking tour of the area instead and tip the guide. You’ll learn more, you’ll move at a sensible pace, and you won’t end up in anyone’s animal-welfare argument.
2. Step inside Notre-Dame Basilica
From the outside, the Basilica of Notre-Dame on Place d’Armes looks grand but expected. Then you go in. The entire interior is painted in this deep cobalt blue, with gold leaf on every other surface and stained glass that tells the story of Montreal rather than the usual bible scenes. The first time I took a friend visiting from Europe she just stood in the aisle and laughed because she wasn’t ready for it.
Standard adult admission is around 15 CAD. There’s a separate Aura light and music show in the evenings (closer to 30 CAD) that uses the building as a projection surface. It’s well done if you like that sort of thing; if you don’t, the daytime visit is enough on its own. Either way, book online to skip the door queue. Service is in French most of the time, but the tour audio is in English. Quiet voices once you’re inside, please. People come here to pray, not just to take pictures.
3. Walk up Mount Royal (yes, in winter too)
Mont-Royal is the hill the city is named after, designed in part by Frederick Law Olmsted (the same person who did Central Park in New York). The classic move is to walk up to the Kondiaronk Belvedere, the wooden lookout above the chalet, and stare at the downtown skyline with the Saint Lawrence River behind it.
You have a few options for getting up there. The official staircase from avenue du Parc is the workout route, about 200 wooden steps that twist through the trees. The Olmsted path is the gentler one, a wide gravel road that loops up at a kinder angle and is the way to go if you have kids, a stroller, or have eaten too much smoked meat to deal with steps. Or you can just take the 11 bus from Mont-Royal metro and skip the climb entirely. No shame in it.
Sunset is the obvious time, and it’s worth the cliché. But the view in winter, when the city is white and the sky is pink at four in the afternoon, is the one I keep going back for. Bring layers; the wind on top is not the same as the wind at street level. In summer, the Tam-Tams happen at the foot of the mountain near the George-Étienne Cartier monument every Sunday from May into September: drum circles, picnic blankets, people dancing, semi-organized chaos. Genuinely good vibes, free, very Montreal.
4. Pick a side in the bagel war
Two bagel shops, both in Mile End, both open 24 hours, both wood-fired, both have customers who’ll fight you over which is better. St-Viateur Bagel at 263 rue Saint-Viateur Ouest, opened 1957. Fairmount Bagel at 74 avenue Fairmount Ouest, opened 1919. They’re a five-minute walk apart. You can do both in one morning and decide for yourself, which is what I’d actually recommend.
For the record: St-Viateur. The crust is slightly thinner, the inside slightly chewier, and the place feels like it hasn’t changed in fifty years because it hasn’t. Get the sesame, hot from the oven, and eat it on the sidewalk. Don’t ask for a topping. Don’t ask for it sliced. A plain hot Montreal bagel is one of the cheapest perfect things in the city; a six-pack runs about 7 CAD.
Fairmount people will tell you their dough is denser and the seeds toast better. They might be right. Try both and judge from your own mouth. You will not be the first or last person to have this argument over coffee.
5. Eat smoked meat at Schwartz’s, and decide if the queue was worth it
Schwartz’s Deli has been at 3895 boulevard Saint-Laurent since 1928. The menu is essentially: smoked meat sandwich, fries, pickle, cherry coke. Order medium fat unless you have strong feelings otherwise. The meat is rubbed with a spice blend that’s been a “secret” for a hundred years, marinated for ten days, smoked overnight, and hand-sliced on the spot. The sandwich is honestly a wonder, somewhere around 14 CAD plus tax, and you can taste why people travel for it.
The queue, though. On a sunny Saturday at lunch you can wait an hour to get a table. There’s a takeout counter next door (same kitchen, same meat, no queue) and a charcuterie a few blocks south (Lester’s on Bernard) that locals will tell you is just as good. Go to Schwartz’s once for the experience. Then go to Lester’s or the takeout window forever after. If you’re vegetarian, this section is not for you and Mile End has plenty of options that are.
6. Spend a slow morning at Jean-Talon Market
Marché Jean-Talon (Jean-Talon Market) is in Little Italy, a few minutes’ walk from Jean-Talon metro on the orange or blue line. It’s a covered open-air market that’s been there since 1933, and on a Saturday morning in summer it’s the most alive part of the city. You wander between stalls of strawberries the size of golf balls, flats of fresh basil, three different cheese counters, two different butcher shops, and Quebec maple syrup in every grade you didn’t know existed.
Pay attention to the syrup section. There are four grades (Golden, Amber, Dark, Very Dark) and they taste genuinely different. Amber is the all-rounder. Very Dark tastes the way you imagine maple should but rarely does. Many of the stalls let you sample. Do that. A 250 ml tin of good syrup is about 12 CAD and weighs nothing in your suitcase.
While you’re in the neighbourhood, walk south on rue Saint-Laurent or rue Saint-Dominique into Little Italy proper. Caffè Italia at 6840 Saint-Laurent has been pulling espresso since 1956, and an espresso costs 2 CAD at the counter. It’s a stand-up bar with old men reading the paper. Not a vibe; a place.
7. Find the local market: Atwater, in Saint-Henri
Jean-Talon is in every guidebook. Atwater Market, near Lionel-Groulx metro on the green or orange line, is where people who actually live in the city do their shopping. The Art Deco clock tower is from the same era as Jean-Talon, but the inside has fewer tourist-facing stalls and more proper butchers, fishmongers, and a flower hall that’s worth the detour by itself. There’s a smokehouse near the entrance that does cured meats you can build a picnic around.
Best move: pick up bread, cheese, charcuterie, and fruit, then walk out the back door directly onto the Lachine Canal path. Sit on a bench with the canal reflecting the downtown skyline behind you. That’s a 20 CAD lunch in one of the better spots in the city.
8. Bike or walk the Lachine Canal
The Lachine Canal was the original industrial route around the Lachine Rapids when Montreal was a port city. Now it’s a flat, mostly traffic-free bike path that runs from the Old Port out to the Lachine Rapids in the west end. About 14 km one way if you do the whole thing, but the most scenic stretch is between the Old Port and Atwater Market, which is roughly 4 km and a comfortable hour of walking.
Grab a BIXI from any docking station (the bike-share is everywhere downtown, about 6 CAD for an unlimited day pass) and ride out to Atwater. There are picnic tables, a few cafés along the way, and the bike path is fully separated from cars. In winter it becomes a cross-country ski trail in places, which is its own kind of strange and beautiful.
9. Drift around the Old Port (and the Grande Roue if you must)
Le Vieux-Port (the Old Port) is the riverfront strip below Old Montreal: a wide boardwalk along the Saint Lawrence with grass, fountains, kiosks, and a 60-metre Ferris wheel called La Grande Roue de Montréal. Tickets for the wheel are around 30 CAD per adult, and the view from the top is fine but you can get a better one for free from Mount Royal. I’d skip it unless you’re with kids who’ll never forgive you for walking past.
What’s actually worth doing here: the riverboat cruise on the AML Cavalier Maxim if you’ve got a couple of hours and reasonable weather (about 40 CAD for a basic 90-minute loop), the seasonal beach (yes, Clock Tower Beach, Plage de l’Horloge, no swimming but real sand) in summer, and in winter the outdoor skating rink at the Bonsecours Basin which is one of the prettiest places in the city after dark. Skate rental on site is around 12 CAD.
10. Cross over to the Plateau and Mile End
If you only have time to wander one neighbourhood that isn’t Old Montreal, make it the Plateau-Mont-Royal and Mile End. They’re side by side, the Plateau more residential and slightly more polished, Mile End scrappier and more interesting. The signature look is here: the spiral wrought-iron staircases on the front of every triplex, the murals on every side wall, the cafés that double as bookshops, the clothing stores in old garages.
Walk avenue du Mont-Royal east to west for the Plateau version. Walk rue Bernard or rue Saint-Viateur for Mile End. You’ll pass through what locals call “le Main” (the Main, meaning boulevard Saint-Laurent), the historical dividing line between the French east and the English west of the city. Today it’s mostly bars, vintage shops, and bagel queues. Stop at a café somewhere along the way. Café Olimpico at 124 rue Saint-Viateur Ouest is the Mile End classic; espresso for 3 CAD, no Wi-Fi, no fuss.
If you’re moving here rather than just visiting, this is also the area you want to base a search around at first. I cover the moving logistics in my honest guide to moving to Montreal, including which neighbourhoods are worth the rent and which aren’t.
11. Look up at Saint Joseph’s Oratory
Most people see Saint Joseph’s Oratory (Oratoire Saint-Joseph) from a distance, perched on the western flank of Mount Royal with its enormous green-bronze dome. Worth getting up close. The basilica is the largest church in Canada, with a dome that’s only outsized by Saint Peter’s in Rome. Admission is free, donation suggested, and there’s a small museum about Brother André, the man it was built for.
The famous detail: 283 steps lead up to the entrance, and you’ll see pilgrims climbing the central staircase on their knees as a religious devotion. It’s a quiet thing to witness, even if you have no skin in any religion. Take the Côte-des-Neiges metro on the blue line, then it’s a ten-minute walk uphill. Bring a layer; the dome is exposed and the wind picks up.
12. Stare at Habitat 67
Habitat 67 is the brutalist modular housing complex that the Israeli-Canadian architect Moshe Safdie designed for Expo 67, the World’s Fair Montreal hosted in 1967. It’s 158 prefabricated concrete cubes stacked into 354 apartments, all of which are still occupied (and very expensive: a unit there sells for well over a million CAD when one comes up).
You can’t just wander in, but you can get the best view from the Old Port boardwalk looking south, or from a bike ride out along the Cité du Havre peninsula. Safdie Architects offers paid guided tours of one of the apartments at certain times of year (around 35 CAD, book online); it’s the only legitimate way inside. For the photos, free is fine. Sunset from the south side of the Old Port is when it looks like it’s floating.
13. Go underground in winter (RÉSO and the Underground City)
You don’t fully appreciate the Underground City until February. It’s a network of about 32 km of tunnels and corridors connecting metro stations, shopping malls, hotel lobbies, office buildings, and the Bell Centre, all under downtown. Officially it’s called RÉSO. It started in the 1960s as a way to keep the downtown commercial core walkable when the wind chill is minus 25, and it has just kept growing. Around half a million people use it on a busy day.
You won’t tour it on purpose. You’ll use it accidentally when you duck into a metro station to dodge the wind and pop up three blocks later inside a shopping centre that wasn’t on your map. Bonaventure, Place-des-Arts, Peel, McGill, and Square-Victoria-OACI all connect into the network. If you’re here in winter, accept that you’ll spend more time underground than you planned and wear shoes you can do both with.
While you’re down there, the metro itself is worth a glance. Each station has its own architectural personality, designed by a different artist or studio in the 60s and 70s. Berri-UQAM, Champ-de-Mars (with the stained glass by Marcelle Ferron), and Square-Victoria-OACI (with the Hector Guimard art nouveau entrance gifted by Paris) are the showpieces. A single fare is 3.75 CAD, a day pass 11 CAD; current pricing is on the STM website.
14. Walk the Mural Festival blocks (any time of year)
Every June, the Mural Festival (MURAL) brings street artists from around the world to paint a stretch of boulevard Saint-Laurent between Sherbrooke and Mont-Royal, the strip is closed to cars for ten days and there’s a free outdoor stage. But the murals stay up after the festival ends. So even in October, even in February, you can walk Saint-Laurent through the Plateau and end up surrounded by ten years of accumulated street art.
The single most-photographed piece is the Leonard Cohen tribute on the side of a 21-storey building on rue Crescent, but you’ll see his portrait on smaller walls too. Look up. Most of the murals are above eye level. Best route: start at Sherbrooke metro, walk north on Saint-Laurent to avenue du Mont-Royal, then loop back south on Saint-Urbain. Two hours, free, and you’ll have seen more wall art than most cities have in their entire downtown.
15. Drink craft beer where Montrealers drink it
Quebec has a serious microbrewery scene, and the drinking age in the province is 18 (the lowest in Canada, which used to draw a lot of weekend traffic from New York and Vermont). The dépanneur (corner store) sells craft beer in Quebec, which is its own small miracle that visitors from other provinces find baffling. A four-pack of something genuinely good runs about 16 CAD at a dep.
For sit-down places: Dieu du Ciel! at 29 avenue Laurier Ouest in Mile End is the icon, the brewpub that started Quebec’s modern craft beer culture. Get the Péché Mortel imperial stout if it’s on. Vices & Versa on Saint-Laurent is the spot for tasting Quebec-only beers from breweries you’ve never heard of, with a back terrasse that’s pretty in summer. Le Cheval Blanc on rue Ontario Est is the oldest brewpub in the province, going back to 1987, and feels exactly that age, in the best way.
I’ve broken down the proper list of breweries by neighbourhood, with what’s worth the detour and what isn’t, in my full Montreal brewpubs and microbreweries guide. Or just browse the rest of the food and drink category if you’d rather start with where to eat than where to drink.
And one more: the Botanical Garden if you have a fourth day
I said 15. This is a bonus because it’s worth knowing about. The Jardin botanique de Montréal is the second-largest botanical garden in the world after Kew in London, and sits next to the old Olympic Stadium in the east end (Pie-IX metro on the green line). Adult admission is around 23 CAD in summer; it’s worth it if you go for a few hours.
The Chinese Garden and the Japanese Garden are the postcard sections, but the real reason to come is the autumn lighting festival, Gardens of Light (Jardins de lumière), which runs from early September into October. The Chinese Garden gets thousands of silk lanterns, the Japanese Garden gets minimal projections, and you walk through it in the dark. Buy timed tickets online via the Espace pour la vie official site; it sells out on weekends.
If you’re already in the area, the Olympic Park is across the road. The leaning tower (the Tour de Montréal) is the world’s tallest inclined tower, and you can ride a funicular up it for about 28 CAD. The view is broad rather than dramatic. The Biodome at the base, four ecosystems under one roof including a small penguin colony, is much better value at around 22 CAD and is genuinely good with kids on a rainy day.
How to actually fit it into a trip
Three days is the minimum to do this list justice. Not because the city is enormous (it isn’t, you can walk most of it), but because Montreal is a place that rewards slowing down. The cafés are part of the experience. The wandering is the experience. If you tick everything off in 48 hours, you’ve done it like a tourist; if you do most of it over three or four days with breaks for terrasses and naps, you’ve done it like a local.
Rough route I’d suggest if you have three full days. Day one, Old Montreal and the Old Port, ending at Notre-Dame in the late afternoon. Day two, Mount Royal in the morning, Mile End and the Plateau in the afternoon, brewery stop in the evening. Day three, Atwater Market and the Lachine Canal by bike, then either the Botanical Garden if it’s the season or Saint Joseph’s Oratory and Habitat 67 if it isn’t.
One last thing on tipping. Restaurants and bars expect 15 to 20 percent on the pre-tax total, the same as in the rest of North America. Quebec sales tax (15 percent combined federal and provincial) gets added at the till on top of the menu price, which catches people off guard. The drink that says 8 CAD on the menu lands at about 9.20 CAD on the bill, plus tip. It’s not a scam; it’s just how the price tags work here. Pay it cheerfully and the city will be much better to you in return.
