After arriving in Montreal, we took the airport bus to the city and checked into our hotel, the Humaniti. Our first stop was Mile End where we had smoked meat sandwiches at Schwartz’s Deli. We then walked up Mont Royal where we stayed until sunset before returning to visit Chinatown, right next to our hotel.
Arrival
After a morning non-stop flight from Dulles in the morning on United Airlines, we arrived at YUL, Montreal Trudeau, at around 10:30am. We entered Canada and located the 747 bus stop at the airport. There are actually two routes which share the same bus number. 747-1 makes multiple stops in Montreal’s downtown area while 747-2 goes non-stop to the Lionel-Groulx metro station.
We purchased tickets for the bus which comes as a 24 hour ticket for Zone A, which covers central Montreal. We took 747-1 to the René-Lévesque / Jeanne-Mance stop. The airport isn’t particularly far away but the trip took around 30 minutes.
We were able to check into our room at the Humaniti on arrival.
The room is best described as modern in appearance.
Our room wasn’t high enough in the hotel to see above the other nearby buildings.
The bathroom, like the rest of the room, was nice and modern. Unfortunately, it did not have a tub.
Schwartz’s Deli
We decided to go have lunch at Schwartz’s Deli. The most convenient bus stop was Saint-Laurent / De la Gauchetière, a few blocks to the east in Chinatown.
Montreal’s Chinatown looked pretty small but seems to have many businesses. We will take a look at this neighborhood later!
We took bus 55 to Saint-Laurent / Napoléon. It stops right in front of Schwartz’s! In fact, the rear door of the bus where we got off from happened to be right at the end of the restaurant’s queue!
The restaurant actually has a separate take out line which seemed like it was much shorter. Our wait was made shorter by the people who dropped out of the line to get it to go! Looking inside the separate take out entrance, it seemed like there might be a separate queue inside that wasn’t visible from the outside though.
We didn’t photograph the dining area of the restaurant but it is very small and they really cram you in! Generally, we don’t see this kind of seating in Western restaurants where tables are shared between groups so that every seat is used.
We ordered two smoked meat sandwiches, one medium and one fatty. It is possible to also get it lean, though the consensus seems to be that it is too dry. So what is smoked meat? It is something like pastrami made from beef brisket. Serious Eats wrote an article about the difference. The amount of meat on each sandwich is huge! The sandwiches were fantastic, particularly the fatty brisket.
We also got a smoked meat poutine, because after all this is Quebec! It was a pretty standard poutine except with a huge pile of smoked meat on top! The fries weren’t anything special but the beef worked pretty well with the cheese and gravy.
Schwartz’s definitely feels like one of those places where they do everything the same way they did since they opened and will continue doing things this way until the very end. It ends up being a bit inefficient but at least you know the food is probably just as it was many years ago!
Mont Royal
After our late lunch, we decided to go walk, or perhaps hike, up Mont Royal as is is right by Schwartz’s. We figured we had plenty of time to make it to the top before sunset.
We walked over two ice cream cones on the sidewalk!
There was also a mural on a nearby building.
We noticed this church had what seemed like Himalayan prayer flags. It turns out there was a Tibetan bazaar going on! The bazaar seems to be held once a day per year so we just happened to walk by at the right time to see the flags hanging above the parking lot. This church, the Mission Santa Cruz, seems to be a Portuguese Catholic church.
We could see Mont Royal up ahead as well as a large column with sculptures in front.
The column is a monument to Sir George-Étienne Cartier. He seems to be considered an important figure in combining the colonies to become one Canada, though still under British rule.
This plaque is in honor of Jacques Cartier, who is credited for “discovering” Montreal. The two Cartiers are not related.
We followed what was likely to be the shortest path up Mont Royal while still remaining on trail. There does seem to be alternate extremely steep paths up that looked quite questionable.
The steep path led to a road and a long parking lot.
The northeastern edge of the parking lot overlooks the city below.
It wasn’t very busy. A low wall that runs through the middle of the overlook provides a place to sit and rest.
The view is excellent! Some of Montreal’s downtown area can be seen on the east, or right, side of this panorama.
Stairs lead further up Mont Royal from the eastern end of the overlook.
We took what seemed like it should be the most direct path to a few of the nearby points of interest.
The peak of Mont Royal is here, by this rather unattractive tower. There isn’t really anything of interest here.
The Mont Royal Cross is nearby. This cross is visible from the downtown area below the mountain. This often seems to be cited as the peak of Mont Royal, however, this is clearly not true once you look at a topo map or actually visit the cross and the nearby tower. There is actually a much larger transmission tower nearby as well, however, there was no reason to visit as it isn’t at the peak.
We continued on this wide path which generally heads to the south.
A short walk led to the Belvédère Kondiaronk. This large overlook was pretty busy! It is right above the city’s central downtown area. It is actually accessible via stairs directly from below. The path we took was much longer and not nearly as steep.
The view from the overlook is fantastic! Although it was pretty busy, people come and go so it didn’t take long to find a spot at the edge. We aren’t too familiar with Montreal so there isn’t really any particular building we could identify.
The Chalet du Mont-Royal stands on the far end of the overlook. It is a rather large building with a long central room. This would probably be described as a lodge rather than a chalet in American English. The chalet contains a small cafe, the Café des Amis.
We decide to hang around for an hour until sunset. Unfortunately, the mountain blocks the sunlight from glowing on the buildings closer to the mountain.
We hung around for another 15 minutes or so after sunset as the sky continued to change color. We took the stairs down from the overlook. We didn’t take any pictures as it was dark and we were trying to go down as fast as we could.
After descending, we crossed the street to reach the Peel / Des Pins bus stop. We waited a bit for the next bus, #50, to arrive. We took it to the Du Beaver Hall / Viger stop, which is about two blocks from the Humaniti.
Evening
We decided to walk around the area a bit on our way to Chinatown. This sculpture was near the bus stop. It is Tai Chi Single Whip by Ju Ming, a Taiwanese artist.
This lighted arched passageway was to the south.
It turns out it leads to Montreal’s famous Victoria Square subway entrance! This entrance was made by French architect Hector Guimard for the Paris Metro. It was gifted to Montreal by the RATP, Paris’ transit operator, in 1967.
We came across this elevation marker nearby. We don’t know why it is here.
This statue of Queen Victoria was to the south on the other side of a street as well as a fence.
We walked three short blocks to the northeast to reach another public square, Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle. There were multi-colored lights strung between the trees. This lifesize statue, Le Grand Jean-Paul by Roseline Granet, depicts Jean-Paul Riopelle.
This large installation, La Joute, was created by Jean-Paul Riopelle and was moved here from the Olympic Park when this square was created in 2003. When active, this installation acts as a fountain and has hourly shows which include the use of fire. Unfortunately, it is turned off during the winter so we didn’t get to see it do anything.
This small marker displays the name of the installation as well as the Olympic rings.
We ended up walking by the Humaniti on our way to Chinatown.
Montreal’s Chinatown is pretty small, basically just three short blocks plus some side streets. But it is full of various restaurants and bubble tea shops, many of which were busy.
We started out with some tea from Yi Fang, which we’ve had before in London. It is a chain from Taiwan and has locations around the world.
There is a small plaza in the middle of Chinatown with a statue of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, founder of the Republic of China.
Our next stop was Prestotea, which has two locations here in tiny Chinatown! It is also a chain from Taiwan, though we’ve never heard of it. We got the mango slush with aloe as the mango line was advertised prominently at the shop we visited near the northeast end of Chinatown. The mango unfortunately wasn’t really that great.
This gate was at the northeastern corner of Chinatown.
The gate is next to Chicha Sanchen, which we’ve had before in Philly. This location opened recently in June. The tea that they serve is pretty strong. This chain is probably the most serious bubble tea shop that we’ve been to as the focus is more on the tea rather than the added flavors, and there are always multiple teas to choose from.
Our last visit was Dingxiang because they had bing tanghulu with actual hawthorn, which is the fruit that is normally used for tanghulu. The skewer only has two hawthorns because they’re hard to get here. It was pretty good! The fruit apparently has seeds, happily, they were already removed! We also got beef skewers, which was fantastic! The beef was incredibly tender and well seasoned, though perhaps a bit too salty.
We ended up taking a longer way back via René-Lévesque Blvd, the street that we first arrived on by bus in the morning. The area between Chinatown and the Humaniti, basically a few short blocks, seems to contain quite a bit of homeless. We didn’t want to walk through that area in the dark, particularly as it didn’t seem like there were very many people present.
There were some lighted decorations on the street for the upcoming Christmas holiday. The Desjardins building, belonging to a Canadian financial company of the same name, was prominently illuminated in green.
Back at the Humaniti! The hotel, with entrance on the left, is part of the larger Humaniti complex which seems to contain both apartments and condos.
The building spans over the entrance.