We are spending about 2.5 days in Canada later this week on our way to New Hampshire. I've got everything mapped out driving wise and where to stay, but if we have just a Saturday afternoon until Sunday at about 1pm (about 24 hours), what should we be sure to see/do?

I know that we plan on checking out the "Old Port" area and will be staying in that proximity as well.

It will be my wife, 17 year old daughter (who wants to take in all of the "french") and I.

Thoughts?

Montreal is a very diverse city (every corner is different than the other).
If you want to see some "french exotic" aspects without going too far, you might want to go to the corner of "Saint-Denis" and "Ontario" (short taxi ride from old port) and move around. Lots of pubs, live shows, restaurants of all kinds and although French at 70%, all bilingual.

In the old port, Saint-Paul street is beautiful and offers things for every taste.

Downtown, you can go underground. Montreal has the largest series of underground malls on the planet. You literally spend an entire day moving around shops and restaurants. Yes, we do need places to hide during winter!

If you have anything more specific, let me know.

so where do you get the best putine?

Poutineville or Frites Alors.

It's a heart-clogging, sphincter-spasming good time.

Thanks for the tips. We were going to get poutine near Niagara Falls tomorrow, but maybe we will wait for Montreal.

Made it to Sarnia, ON tonight just after midnight. Pretty quick through the border. My wife was driving and was super nervous, but I told her just to answer the questions and we would be fine. Guess what? We were!

Best poutine in Montreal is at the Greene Spot near Atwater subway station.

Hmmm...I will have to check out Greenspot on my next trip. My go to for poutine has always been La Banquise, usually after a night of beer drinking!

Andrew, Éric,

I will check both places and let you know how they rate compare to the best one I have tested so far. It is in Granby, the place is called Cantine Chez Ben la Bédaine. It won the best poutine contest in 2011. It is my reference . . .

Ben la Bédaine

I actually loved the one at Chez Charlie in your own Sherbrooke while I was at U de S.

Éric,

I don't think ever having one there. For a few years it was my breakfast place (almost daily)with several friends; we had a terrific time - great memories !

How many Charlie were in operation back then ? Nowadays we are down to a single one located near the Court building almost downtown ?

For their poutine, were they using regular shaped fries or the sliced type ?

We had a VERY late start this morning (oh, wait, YESTERDAY morning) driving from Sarnia, ON to Niagara Falls. Hit up the Canada side for a while, then walked across the Rainbow Bridge to the Canada side for a whole $0.50 a person. Quick and easy. Did the Cave of the Winds and got soaked, and started back to Canada. There ended up being a massive line extending out on to the bridge to get through customs which really slowed us down on our departure. Just got out between the lighting of the falls and the fireworks. Made it to Napanee for our hotel stay at about 1:30am.

It is now 2:15am and we head out to Montreal in the morning. Just over 3 hours of driving to get to where we want to be for the day. Hopefully we will get out of the hotel by 10am like we planned to before Niagara Falls, but I'm not holding my breath. I predict 11:30 departure. LOL

I am not 100% sure where we will end up for poutine, and I've already told my wife and daughter that it "isn't the most amazing thing, but you have to try it when in Canada."

Sorry, but that is what we are resorting to for "Canadian" food.
We did stop at a Harvey's for lunch, and there are Tim Horton's everywhere, but I am not sure if we will hit any other popular food place that seems specific to Canada while we are here for the remainder of our stay. If we weren't always rushing from one place to another, we could try to take in something a little better.

Avril Lavigne is from Napanee, if you are interested.

Anyways, back to food...

You should get some Montreal Smoked Meat into you before you go home.

https://www.yelp.ca/search?find_desc=Smoked+Meat&find_loc=Montr%C3%A9al%2C+QC

Not sure what the current state of the bagel wars is, but the last time I paid attention the border traffic seemed to be evenly split between Canadians driving to NYC for bagels and New Yorkers driving to Montreal for bagels.

Try to find a restaurant serving traditional Quebec cuisine - it's been too long since I've been there but at minimum they do interesting things with pork & maple syrup.

Stop in a St-Hubert for chicken... like Swiss Chalet but better... it was a sad day for Ontario when St Hubert closed down here, and a sad day for Quebec when Swiss Chalet's parent bought St Hubert.

Nanaimo bars... Mr. Submarine... maple syrup pie or sugar pie... Coffee Crisp chocolate bars... Kinder Eggs are illegal in the US if you want to live dangerously...

... if you're into cheese the Eastern Townships (south-east of Montreal) are one of the few places where young, raw-milk cheeses are still sold (look for "route des fromages"...

... Unibroue (one of the early successful microbreweries) is about 15 miles out of Montreal and have been making really good Belgian beers for 25+ years... but they don't seem to have tours so never mind...

... and of course pick up a bottle of Screech before you leave, and have some more poutine

Apparently Canada consumes more Kraft Dinner per capita than any other country in the world, but we're not proud of that.