I can make recommendations for
Montreal.
Good restaurants, oh where to begin? There are sooo many!
One of my personal favourites at the moment is Cafe L'Etranger, on rue St Catherine, near the corner of University...it's on the south side of the street down some stairs next to the BMO, great menu, great prices, funky cosy atmosphere.
Try rue St Denis for some awesome restaurants...there are so many! Everything imaginable, from Italian, French, Swiss, to Thai, Nepalese, Ethiopian. Lower St Denis (between Ontario and Maisonneuve) has some awesome cafes for a good cup of coffee or a sandwich for lunch. Try Brulerie St Denis or Le Brioche Lyonnais (also great breakfast) Further up on St Denis (above Sherbrooke or in the Duluth area) there are some more expensive but really yummy restaurants to suit every taste.
One must-try for any meat lover is Schwartz's Deli on St Laurent. Expect a line, and expect a sandwhich in which the bread is simply to hold the mountain of Montreal smoked meat. For vegetarian, I would highly recommend Lola Rosa's on rue Milton, near McGill University...funky atmosphere, great heaping portions of yummy food for decent prices! Lots of restaurants have veggie options on their menus too.
And even though I'm not a big beer drinker, I'd recommend checking out at least one micro-brewery...Brewtopia on Cresent St, Le Cheval Blanc on Ontario, L'Amere a Boire on St Denis. It sure beats Labatt or Molsen any day!
Bookstore. I honestly usually go to the
Bibliotheque Nationale, which opened only a couple years ago. You could very easily spend hours in the open, spacious library. But if you need a bookshop, Indigo, Chapters and Paragraphe are the main chains, plus there's Archambault for the Frenchies. And lots of small, second-hand book shops scattered around the city...the Word on Milton near McGill University is one such book shop.
Museums. Check out the
Musee des Beaux Arts on Sherbrooke (yay for free museums!) and the
Musee d'Art Contemporarian at Place des Arts. And visiting the Olympic Stadium is always fun (I do recommend the guided tour, I've taken it a few times).
And a favourite of mine is to go to the greenhouses of the
Botanical Gardens in the winter...it's nice to have temperatures of 30 when it's below 20 outside!
Walking tour? Well, I've taken people walking all over the city, but I do recommend hoping on the metro at least once. Areas that are lovely to walk around include Old Montreal, the Plateau, and Parc Lafontaine. Downtown, the Underground is awesome. You can walk a good chunk of the downtown shopping area completely underground. Of course, above ground is where you'll see the contrast between old churches and new buildings (along St Catherine Street), but when the wind picks up, the underground is where it's at. The
STM site has lots of maps, including one of the Underground.
I also recommend a walk up Mont Royal up to the Chalet to get a view of the Montreal skyline (paths can be accessed on Dr Penfield near Peel as well as a few other spots)
Trains? Check out
Via Rail Canada for trains. Buses (Greyhound) also run between Montreal and Quebec, and Montreal to Ottawa (the bus to T.O. is rather a long ride...not sure if it's better or not than the train).
Hotels? No idea. I've never stayed in any hotels in any of the cities you're going. 😊
Bon voyage!
Oh, and
Ottawa museums: The National Gallery and the Civilization Museum are both really good. I've also heard the Canadian War museum is great, but I haven't had the chance to go there yet.
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