Montreal In 4 Days

Have You ever been to Montreal? Some could argue (and I certainly would) that its Canada best city. With the friendly people, beautiful shops, amazing restaurant landscape...everything you would want in a city.

I recently got spend a quick 4 days there as my eldest is heading to university in Sherbrooke (about 1.5 hours outside Montreal) so I opted to take them out and do a tour and get them familiar with the local area. While the tour was great in itself....Nothing compares to having the time with my kid and re-exploring and eating our way through Montreal.

I've been a few time before throughout my life but I was much younger. I have great memories of walking Old Montreal down by the water, eating at St-Hubert (as a kid), visiting family friends and eating at iconic places such as Schwartz's Deli. If you have never been...GO. It doesn't pretend to be anything but awesome Montreal smoked meat.

Notre Dame Light Show

We stayed at Le Square Phillips (I'm usually not one for hotels, I prefer private rentals because there are more amenities) which was close to everything we needed, had great service and was quiet at night.

Night of our arrival we ate at Henri. A higher end restaurant located in the Birks Hotel. While it was good, it missed some marks on service and lacked a some passion within the food.

The next morning we walk to Olive & Gourmando based on the recommendation from two old school friends that we have semi kept in touch with (they live there full time and I am a bit jealous of that). This was a great breakfast spot to start the day. A brick morning walk through old Montreal was the perfect way to wake up.

Morning Walk Through Old Montreal

We spent the day tripping around Old Montreal, St. Denis and other areas that has some cool thrift stores, vinyl stores and some good historic value.

I was truly excited to introduce my kid to Au Pied Du Cochon, one of my all time favourite places to eat. This place is buzzing withe energy, nearly always sold out (make reservations well in advance) and just gets it when it comes to food and service. We nearly sampled the entire menu.

Stuffed Pigs Foot

On our way back to the hotel for the evening we found a cool doughnut shop...Who doesn't like doughnuts? La Beignerie has so many great flavours, we purchase a half dozen even though we were already stuffed.

Other then eating our way around, we did enjoy the iconic Ferris Wheel, the Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History, Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal, Mount Royal lookout and more....What great trip.

St Joseph's