One word describes Montreal: delicious. The city’s fine-dining restaurants and mom-and-pop eateries, sumptuous natural scenery and gorgeous architecture, and the commingling of French and English at every turn work in concert to create a delight for all senses. It’s an enjoyable—and scenic—drive from Northeastern cities, and also easily accessible by air. Montreal travel—here’s the lowdown. 

Where to Stay

Tucked away on tiny rue Saint-Sulpice in Old Monteal, the Hotel St. Sulpice offers a modern, cosmopolitan getaway in the city’s most historic neighborhood. All rooms are suite-style and generously sized, and come with free wi-fi, espresso machines, and mini-kitchenette facilities. Rooms with fireplaces, balconies, or terraces are available upon request. Several spa packages, including both traditional in-spa services or in-room pampering treatments, can be folded in to your room rate. You can also book a culinary getaway featuring a six-course dinner at the hotel restaurant. Rates start at $179 (Canadian dollars) per night. (Get the latest currency conversions at XE.com.)

There’s no shortage of B&Bs in Montreal, but La Loggia Art and Breakfast puts a different twist on the standard inn by focusing on artistic and healthy getaways. It’s located in Bay Village, adjacent to the Latin Quarter, with easy access to the Beri/UQAM metro stop. Canadian artwork is featured throughout the inn, with no two rooms alike. Additionally, guests can tour the innkeeper’s nearby studio/art gallery, or take a sculpting workshop, fitness class, or city bike tour. Rates start at $105 per night, including daily breakfast.

Where to Eat

There’s an ongoing debate over breakfast throughout Montreal: Who makes the better bagel, Fairmount or St. Viateur? Loyalties are fierce among the locals, and frankly, both shops are pretty amazingly good – it’s hard to beat the mueslix bagel at Fairmount, packed with honey, triticale flakes, oats, millet, sesame seeds, and raisins … until one tries the rosemary and sea salt bagel at St. Viateur, that is. Create a win-win situation (and see which place you prefer) by sampling the bagels from both establishments during your stay.

It’s an impossible task to recommend just one place for dinner in Montreal – the city is teeming with outstanding restaurants, for any type of culinary preference. But when I thought of memorable meals, I kept returning to Khyber Pass, a BYOB Afghani restaurant in the Mont-Royal neighborhood. The dishes—from pumpkin to lamb, eggplant to chicken—feature unforgettable marriages of flavor and texture, with each dish perfectly cooked. Meat falls off the bone and melts in your mouth; vegetables complement the mains or, with the addition of spice, stand alone on their own right.

Only in Montreal

Rare is the city where you can take a decent hike without going outside the city limits. In Montreal, though, it’s a year-round opportunity. Mont-Royal looms downtown, and the mountain and its surrounding park become a bustling outdoorsy oasis in the summer and fall, and a peaceful getaway (albeit with more challenging terrain) in winter and spring.

Speaking of winter, Montreal offers an extensive underground infrastructure—20 miles in total, a city within a city, as it were—to give residents and visitors easy access to the city’s main attractions and institutions during inclement months. Known locally as La Ville Souterrain, the underground metro and pedestrian corridors offer gateways to the city’s shopping centers, restaurants, theaters, offices, museums, and more, all protected from the weather.

Why I’ll Go Back

Did I mention Montreal travel is tantalizing to the taste buds? It’s truly one of the best culinary cities on the continent, and I’m never going to be able to squeeze all the restaurants I want to try into a weekend or week-long visit. My list grows ever longer, every time I go. For example, check out the menus at Au Pied du Cochon, Garde Manger, and L’Express. I could go on, but I won’t … get there, pace yourself, and try as many restaurants as you can. And be sure to leave a comment and let me know which ones you liked best (so I can go back and try them).

Image: Parc La Fontaine in Autumn (Courtesy Ville Montreal via Tourisme Montreal)

Related on Ecosalon

Montreal Fashion Week

A Refresher Course on Life

Bike Share Programs You Don’t Want to Miss Out On

The post Montreal Travel: Perfect Places to Stay, Amazing Eats, Fun Explorations—In All Seasons appeared first on EcoSalon.

Canada’s sustainable fashion growth is a healthy sign of the times.

With easily more than 50 Canadian designers now working various sustainable practices into their collections, it was difficult to highlight just these five. Canada has seen tremendous growth in the number of eco fashion designers over the past few years. The following designers represent both those who have been leading the movement in Canada, and also some up-and-comers that you should be watching. Their A/W 2011 collections are sure to impress even the most discerning.

Nicole Bridger, Vancouver

Nicole was the first winner of Canada’s Fashion Takes Action award, Design Forward. Her A/W ’11 collection is entitled “Safe to Love,” aptly named after a personal experience she recently had. “Every season I reflect on life lessons that I’m learning”, Bridger says of coming out of a painful relationship. In addition to earth tones, we can expect to see passionate colours from Bridger this fall including reds, purples, and blush pink.

Thieves, by Sonja den Elzen, Toronto

Continuing on the theme of consciousness, Thieves’ A/W 2011 is entitled “Reflection,” which according to designer den Elzen is the embodiment of seasons layered and loved.  “It is about the seasons and years blending together, erasing the lines of time and offering genuine lifelong pieces that become the foundation of a wardrobe for those who are reflective and conscientious of their surroundings.”

This fall, we can expect to see more of the highly tailored look den Elzen achieves with beeswaxed organic cotton and hemp/wool/tencel suiting blends, combined with soft draped jerseys, organic wool knits, and lush, hand-knit wear.

Adhesif, by Melissa Ferreira, Vancouver

Newer to the scene but becoming known for their use of reclaimed and recycled materials, Adhesif recently rocked the runways at Vancouver Eco Fashion Week . For A/W 2011, we can expect to see more vintage tweed, wool suiting and printed cotton twill.

“The colour palette reminds me of a sunset on an open field in the Prairies,” states designer Melissa Ferreira. “Many pieces have a draped feel to them but I have added in some pieces that have a ‘sack’ or box-cut look as well”.

 Harricana by Mariouche, Montreal

For more than two decades, luxury fur designer Mariouche Gagné has been ethically recycling fur made in Canada. She claims to have recycled over 50,000 coats, saving 400 metric tons from landfill. The Harricana A/W 2011 collection features three themes: Femme Fatale, giving rise to elegance and femininity; Military, urban, unisex and streamlined; and Timeless, evoking the wild and untamed nature of the great Canadian outdoors.

Device by Melanie Ferrara, Toronto

Since 2008, designer Melanie Ferrara has produced a series of vintage-inspired modern classics, made in Toronto using tencel, organic wool and organic cotton. For inspiration for her A/W ’11 collection, she looked to the period of the 1940s. “Fashion at that time was influenced by wartime austerity measures, and was characterized by tailored silhouettes with an emphasis on the waist and shoulders,” says Ferrara who adds she used a neutral color palette of navy and black as the base, paired with greys, cream, plum and plaid.  “The result is a collection of timeless, wearable pieces which range in style from modern casual to sophisticated elegance.”

The post Canada’s Top Eco Designers: The Pioneers And Emergents appeared first on EcoSalon.

Last week, Canada celebrated eco fashion on a national scale, with the first ever Eco Fashion Week in Vancouver, and the ModEthik show during Montreal Fashion Week. It was a tough decision for an ecofashionista like myself to choose which city to attend, but in the end Montreal was where I landed.

The ModEthik show was produced by Montreal non-profit organization FEM International whose mission is to support socially and environmentally responsible entrepreneurial practices through awareness and education.

I had the opportunity to see the show that featured nine ethical designers, and attend a discussion around the eco fashion movement in Montreal, led by FEM International Executive Director Lis Suarez and Brenda Plant, Managing Director of Ethiquette. Ethiquette recently conducted a study on the ethical consumer in Montreal, and found that it is a younger female (age 20-40) who is more concerned with the social implications of what she wears, than the fabrics her clothes are made from. Interesting.

So it’s only fitting that the collections shown at ModEthik were all either manufactured locally, or were made in fair conditions.

Unlike the clothing shown on Canada’s west coast, which was entirely eco-friendly, ModEthik was the only show that represented ethical design in Montreal. A little disappointing nonetheless. However I did get to another runway show – Montreal designer Valerie Dumaine who produces 100 percent of her collection right in Montreal.

I also had the chance to hang out with eco fashion boutique owner Danny Lourenco of Rien a Cacher (which means “nothing to hide” for those whose french is a bit rusty) who provided me with some insight into the ethical fashion scene in Montreal.

I hope that next season Montreal takes its cue from Vancouver and injects more sustainable fashion into its Fashion Week. Here are some highlights:

The post ModEthik Brings Ethical Fashion to Montreal Fashion Week appeared first on EcoSalon.

Green travel isn’t just about buying carbon offsets and choosing resorts that serve local, organic fare, it’s about crafting an itinerary that’s built around more sustainable options. That’s especially true when it comes to transportation. Buzzing around a city and racking up cab fare certainly isn’t the most environmentally friendly option, but it also doesn’t allow you the ability to truly explore a place.

Conscious travel is about respecting the places that you’re venturing, and that means taking the time to truly enjoy them. That doesn’t mean you need to commit to three-week long stints in an Italian villa a la Slow Travel, but thinking about how you can better connect with a place on your next extended weekend is a great place to start. And what better way to explore a place than by bike?

Plenty of cosmopolitan cities offer excellent bike share programs, and with them, the opportunity to get to know a city just like a local while at the same time opting for a smarter, more sustainable method of travel.

Here’s a short list of cities with great bike share programs to get you started:

Montreal

The French Canadian metropolis is home to the much loved Bixi, a cutting-edge bike share system that incorporates a bunch of cool technologies including solar power and wifi-enabled stations. You can get everything from a 24-hour to a year-long pass, and the Bixi website helps you easily navigate between the many stations located around the city.

Paris

Maybe the most well-known of bike share systems, Vélib has been putting cyclists on the streets of Paris since 2007. And let’s be honest, what’s more French than a leisurely bike ride along the Seine with a baguette and round of Camembert in your basket all set for an afternoon picnic?

Washington D.C.

A couple of years ago, the U.S. capital unveiled the country’s first fully automated touch-and-go rental program. SmartBike DC has been so popular that now the city is planning to expand, replacing the program with a bigger and better version based on Montreal’s Bixi system. The new system will have 1,100 bikes at 114 different stations.

Copenhagen

The ultimate of cycling capitals, it’s no surprise that Copenhagen offers up its city bikes practically for free. Through the ByCyklen program you can get a bike for a mere 20 DKK deposit, approximately $3.30. The city has 2,000 bikes and 110 city bike racks, meaning you can pretty much explore just about any part of this Scandinavian capital on two wheels.

Melbourne

Melbourne just recently launched its bike-share program, and so far so good for the Australian city. A daily subscription will only cost you $2.50 (plus a little extra depending on how long you use the bike), and if you’re unsure of your cycling skills, you can even take brush up course offered specifically for bike share riders by the local program Bikes@Work. In conjunction with the program’s launch, a third party site, bikeshare.tel, was also set up, letting you identify station locations from your mobile phone.

Taipei

European capitals aren’t the only ones boasting bike share programs. In Taipei you can take advantage of U-Bike, which rolled out in 2009.

Big on bike sharing? Check out the Bike-sharing Blog which has a wealth of content and information on cities around the world that are incorporating programs like these.

Happy travels and safe riding!

Images: solylunafamilia, LWY, M. V. Jantzen, umebike, jon_lin, davidreid

The post Bike Share Programs You Don’t Want to Miss Out On appeared first on EcoSalon.