by Carly Braden

With my brother’s arrival in town for a visit looming on the horizon, my roommate and I thought we’d brainstorm some ideas of things to keep him and his pal busy during the day while we were off at work and in class – and we realized that in the past we’d kind of banked on getting guests so plastered in the evenings that when we had to busy ourselves in the day, they’d be content to just sleep late and nurse their hangovers with Gatorade and St. Viateur bagels. Perhaps, after more than four years in the city, this doesn’t quite cut it anymore. So here, readers, is a brief guide to things that your visitors (and you!) might enjoy doing during the day – because apparently Montreal isn’t only good for nightlife!

To start off, your pals ought to check out the best new addition to the city – Bixi bikes! These happy characters are docked in curbside stations all over the city and only cost $5 (on credit card) to access for the day – and beyond that they’re free for travel increments of half an hour or less – plenty of time to get around and break to check out the sights, sounds, and tastes of centreville.

For the company who enjoy consumerism, Montreal has great shopping – from brand-name stores where you can stock up on basics to unique boutiques and vintage shops (what the French call friperies) where you can pick up pieces no one else has, to endless souvenir shops if you need a novelty shot glass or a t-shirt that says “Good Girls go to Heaven – Bad Girls go to Montreal!” Ste. Catherine is home to the bulk of stores you know; a five-mall complex (attached underground – key for winter shopping) runs from Aylmer to Peel, where you’ll find traditional mall fare, with a couple of notable stores. Brand new to this fine city is Forever 21, in the Complexe des Ailes (University and Ste Catherine) Classic Quebec department store Simon’s anchors the Place Montreal Trust (Mansfield and Ste Catherine) and hidden away in the Cours Mont-Royal (Peel and Ste Catherine) are women’s boutique Olivia, as well as the unisex Three Monkeys. Along the street is the chi-chi department store Ogilvy’s (you’ll find Holt Renfrew just to the north on Sherbrooke), a Betsy Johnson store, the very hip Off the Wall (look for the staircase up), and you’ll want to be sure to check out Boutique FLY (1970 Ste Catherines W) as well. St Laurent and St Denis offer up more unique shops, and a great way to find them all is to do a loop north on St Laurent, west along Mont-Royal, back south down St Denis, and then the lovely route through Square St Louis and along the cobblestone on Prince Arthur. Just off this path but worth checking out are Boutique EXTC (just east of Clark on Prince Arthur – and they’ve currently got a great sale on Guido & Mary and Domino jeans!) and Marché MTL (on Pins just east of St Laurent). It’s also a great trip going farther south on St Denis – you veer a little more into restaurent and bar territory but if you head down you should absolutely poke your nose into Headquarters Galerie + Boutique (a couple blocks east of St Denis and just south of Ontario, 1649 Amherst).

Let them eat cake (or poutine)! There are some great restaurants throughout the city, and your amigos will surely be able to find something to tickle their tastebuds. If it is poutine they seek, it is La Banquise they must have – without question the best variety in selections and made to perfection (994 Rachel E). Phenomenal fries and baby burgers are the top choices at Patati Patata Friterie De Luxe (4177 St Laurent), but if they want the best chicken in the city, it’s got to be Rotisserie Romado’s (115 Rachel E). For the best coffee in North America (apparently the owner pretty much wrote the book on professional barista’ing), head down to Café Myriad (1432 McKay). If you’ve got superb guests who are dying to cook you a meal to thank you for being such a gracious hostess, they’ll want to peddle up to the Jean Talon Market, nestled in Little Italy (7075 Casgrain).

For truly unique dining experiences, try breakfast or lunch at one of Montreal’s three naked restaurants, where ladies wearing nothing but a smile will bring your eggs any way you like – we hear Les Princesses Super Sexy (4970 Hochelaga) and Chez Lidia (2205 Rosemont E) are the better of the two but if you’re in it for the novelty rather than the food, Resto Bistro Les Courtisanes (2533 Ste Catherine E) might do the trick as well.

Prefer to leave a little to the imagination? Try O.Noir (1631 Ste Catherine O), where your entire dining experience is in pitch-black darkness and the full wait staff is blind (don’t worry, you order ahead of time so you can choose between things you know or their ‘surprise’ options!).

Do your friends fancy themselves cultural connoisseurs? The Biodome (4777 Pierre de Coubertin), the Botanical Gardens (4101 Sherbrooke E) and the Notre Dame Basilica (110 Notre Dame W) are all easy choices and lovely to visit, and don’t forget the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (they’ve got an eco-friendly exhibit called Expanding Horizons until the 27th – find it at 1380 Sherbrooke W).

However, if your visitors are interested in something a little more unique to this city, there are other options as well. Particularly beautiful this time of year as the leaves turn is the cemetery circuit, where Mount Royal and Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemeteries share the northern slope of the mountain. Within the collective 500 acres you’ll find an arboretum of rare tree species and you can pay homage to some of your favourite Quebecois figures – buried here are Mordecai Richler, Montreal’s famous mayor Jean Drapeau, and hockey star Maurice Richard, among others. If a day strolling among the dead isn’t top on the list of things to do in Montreal, try instead the Silophone: an old grain silo that was built between 1903 and 1958, though changes in Canada’s grain industry left the massive building redundant less than forty years after it was finished; since then it’s been converted into an acoustic space with remarkable reverberation times of twenty seconds – you can find it all in Silo No. 5 (455 St Pierre).

Your pals can also spend their day biking through Westmount to look at the fancy old houses, down to the Old Port to see the water and entertaining buskers, or bike or hike up the mountain for a stunning view of the island.

If all else fails, you can always just toss them in a cab and send them to the casino – it’s open 24 hours a ay, 7 days a week. By the time you’ve finished class or work, they’ll barely notice you’ve been gone!