Hi Britt, welcome to my city.

The Hilton Bonaventure is a nice hotel that’s very centrally-located downtown, in the central business district. I’ve never stayed there but it’s a Hilton which means it should be pretty nice. You’ll be right next to the metro and walking distance from most of the main areas of the city, so that’s good. Montreal is a very walkable city. The metro is very convenient also; visit http://www.stcum.qc.ca for fares and a map.

If you only have a weekend it seems silly go to Quebec City, you can do that another time. It’s about a 3-hour drive in each direction and there’s plenty to keep busy with in Montreal for 3 days without a problem. Quebec City is beautiful, though.

Here is some basic info on stuff to do/see:

Museums: the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Point a Calliere, the Just For Laughs Museum, the McCord Museum of Canadian History

Clothing shopping: Up and down Ste-Catherine Street (large stores/chains), up and down St-Laurent and St-Denis (funkier/trendier), Mont-Royal in the Plateau (cool finds)

Clubs: Along St-Laurent, Crescent, etc. Many have dress codes and cover charges. Depends on what you’re looking for.

Bars/pubs: Crescent is where the tourists go, but Hurley’s on Crescent is great as an Irish pub. St-Denis has great atmosphere and excellent pubs that are more French / less touristy.

Concert venues: Spectrum, Metropolis, Club Soda – check out Mirror or Hour (free city newspapers) for the listings for the week you’ll be here, there’s always great shows going on.

Comedy clubs: Comedyworks on Bishop is my favourite. Also Comedy Nest or Comedy Zone.

Food: No shortage of options. Even a partial listing of favourites would be woefully incomplete. Depends what you like. Check out http://www.montrealplus.ca for restaurant reviews and other info.

This is really general but if you have any specific questions feel free to ask.

Hey thanks for the ideas! Just one more question – I read online that you have to be 21 or even 25 to enter some clubs – I was under the impression the drinking age was 18 – one girl going is 20, will she have a problem? or is it more how you present yourself? thanks!

Drinking age is 18. A very few clubs have self-imposed age limits because they like to cater to an older crowd, but this is extremely rare, so don’t even worry about it, it’s highly unlikely you’ll even find a club like this. You’ll have no problem getting into clubs, bars, whatever as long as you’re over 18.

Thanks segacs! Feel better knowing that! The whole St-denis area sounds more like what we are looking for, a more laid back atmosphere to drink wine and chat – We decided to do quebec city another time – its just too far.. One more question I just thought of is I have read that montreal is the "amsterdam of North america" .. I have not been to amsterdam and what comes to mind is coffee shops and an extremely liberal take on things – which sounds fantastic but I cannot seem to picture montreal like that?! What do you think?

I don’t know where they get that description. Montreal has a somewhat dubiously infamous reputation for strip clubs, but prostitution is illegal and so is marijuana along with all other drugs. Of course, plenty of people ignore that… but it’s not Amsterdam here.

I think you’re thinking of Vancouver, known as the "Amsterdam of North America"