Downtown: the Golden Square Mile
Rue Sainte-Catherine, the McGill campus, the Museum of Fine Arts, and the merchants' old mansions. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Rue Sainte-Catherine at Peel
Start on the main shopping street where it's at its busiest. Walk west a couple of blocks for the scale of it, then turn uphill — the interest on this walk climbs away from the commercial spine, not along it.

2. Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal
The Museum of Fine Arts straddles Rue Sherbrooke — the old Beaux-Arts pavilion on one side, the newer glass one opposite, joined by a tunnel. The permanent collection is free; the Inuit and Canadian rooms are the ones to give time to. Allow an hour at least.

3. Rue Sherbrooke mansions
Sherbrooke was the spine of the Square Mile, where the merchants who ran a good share of Canada's wealth built their houses. Many are gone, but the survivors — greystone, turreted, now clubs and faculties — still line the street. Walk east and read the doorways.

4. Ravenscrag / the Allan house
Uphill toward the mountain, the grandest of the surviving mansions, now part of the Allan Memorial Institute. You can't go in, but the bulk of it against the slope tells you what Square Mile money looked like. A short climb; skip it if your legs say so.

5. McGill — the Roddick Gates
Come back down to the ornamental gates on Sherbrooke and walk up the tree-lined drive into the campus, the grey buildings climbing toward Mount Royal. The campus is open; wander up to the Arts Building and look back down the avenue at the city.

6. Avenue McGill College
End on the wide avenue that frames Mount Royal at one end and the downtown towers at the other — the best straight-on view of the mountain in the city. Walk down it toward the McGill metro at the bottom.

Downtown: the Golden Square Mile