After waking up and having breakfast, we checked out of the Humaniti, leaving our bags to retrieve later. We went to St-Viateur for some more bagels and Wilensky’s for its special. We returned to downtown Montreal for lunch and matcha soft serve before walking back to the Humaniti, stopping in Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral on the way. After getting our bags, we returned to the airport to fly out.
Morning

After waking up at the Humaniti, we went downstairs for one last breakfast. We got the smoked salmon bagel as it is the best of all the options, partly due to the bagel from St-Viateur!

After breakfast, we returned to our room to finish packing up and checked out, leaving our bags at the hotel to pick up later.

The Humaniti, as seen from the street.




We walked over to the Place-des-Arts Metro station and ending up walking around a block looking for a Metro entrance.

After finding the entrance, we went inside to buy a 24 hour Zone A ticket as it allows taking the #747 bus to YUL. We didn’t take the Metro though, we headed back to ground level to take bus #80 to Du Parc / Saint-Viateur.

After getting off the bus, we walked over to St-Viateur Bagel and got a maple apple and a blueberry bagel to eat.


We also bought a dozen sesame bagels to take home! Unfortunately we didn’t actually photograph the dozen bagels.


We then quickly walked to Wilensky’s Light Lunch to try their special. We saw Wilensky’s on some YouTube videos but the special sandwich that they sell didn’t really seem too impressive. Still, we were nearby so decided to give it a try. Wilensky’s is actually a few buildings down from Fairmount Bagel, which we visited on our second day in Montreal. Unfortunately we forgot that Wilensky’s was here or we may have just visited then.

It’s actually pretty good! We also got the homemade cherry cola, which tastes like cherry coke but not as artificial.
After our snack, we took the bus #80 from Du Parc / Fairmount to Du Parc / Sherbrooke. From there, we crossed the street to Sherbrooke / Hutchison and took the #24 bus to Sherbrooke / Saint-Marc.

We arrived at Shanghai Fuchun Xiaolong to try their soup dumplings. We had to wait a bit as we arrived before they opened at 11:30am.


We ordered 6 crab and pork soup dumplings and 10 pork soup dumplings. The soup dumplings would have been fantastic if they weren’t overly fragile and stuck to each other as well as the wax paper. The soup flavor inside was pretty good but we had a > 50% leakage rate, including ones that had already leaked before serving. Unfortunately, an extremely poor performance by this restaurant given that they claim to be a xiaolongbao restaurant.

We also ordered the scallion oil mixed noodles. There was nothing particularly special about this dish.
Afternoon

After that disappointing lunch, we walked a few blocks to Matcha Zanmai, a matcha cafe, to try their matcha soft serve. It was pretty good with a good amount of matcha flavor and not too sweet.


We walked by an illuminated, hard to tell during the day, squirrel next to a church on the way to our next destination.


We were eager to try this Tsujiri location as their matcha soft serve and other matcha items at their Kyoto Gion shop are some of the best!


We got a matcha soft serve and a parfait. Not as strong a matcha flavor as in their Kyoto shop but still quite good!

After visiting Tsujiri, we started to walk back to the Humaniti.

We stopped by a Canada Post counter to buy a stamp to mail a postcard. We found out that Canada Post is currently on strike so it may be awhile before any mail is delivered.

On our way, we also noticed that there is a Haidilao here. Its interesting that they chose to brand it as fondue as that term isn’t used at any of the other Haidilao restaurants that we’ve been to or seen. The Swiss do have Fondue Chinoise, though its not really the same at all. To use a probably bad analogy, this is like comparing American Bacon with Canadian Bacon. Sure, its all pork, but that’s about it as far as similarities go.
The mascot out front looks a bit funny because this is the back of its head. Maybe it would be better if he was standing by the windows and facing out?





We continued on, ending up at Dorchester Square. This park contains various monuments as well as an interesting little pedestrian bridge.

We noticed a large mural on a building. The portion of the mural at the bottom right is entirely part of the mural as well, it looks very real!


We crossed the street to find two bears around a monument that seems to be missing its statue? The monument honors John A. Macdonald, the first Prime Minister of Canada. The monument’s statue was destroyed during a George Floyd protest in 2020, with no plans to restore it here.
As for the bears? There is some superficial resemblance to Denver’s Big Blue Bear. Maybe it is just that this is Canada, and Canada certainly has many bears!

We also spotted a moose family, another animal that Canada has many of. Or at least, we Americans think they have many!


We decided to go in to the Cathédrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde (Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral) which was across the street.



There was a bird by the entrance. It appears to be a hummingbird?







We went inside to take a quick look. Just a quick look as we were starting to run low on time.


There is a sign with a photo of Pope Francis next to a sculpture.


This light, or maybe security camera, was covered by a cloth and resembles a little monk or perhaps a nun!





We continued walking through the cathedral.

The last thing we looked at before leaving was the tomb of Ignace Bourget, a Bishop here in Montreal. He commissioned the construction of this cathedral, at the time known as Saint James Cathedral.

We continued on to return to the Humaniti. We noticed this building in the distance. It looks like it is wearing a cat ear hat!


We spotted this large ring on the other side of the street. It centered on two things. One was some buildings of McGill University. As we walked a bit further, the cross atop Mont Royal.

The Olympic Rings atop a building.

Is there something significant here? There might not be.

We happened to notice these plaques on a building that we walked by. They list the Trans-Canada Microwave System as an IEEE Milestone.

After making it back to the Humaniti, we got our bags, visited the bathroom, and did a tiny bit of reorganization for the trip back. We then walked over to René-Lévesque / Jeanne-Mance to catch the #747 bus to the airport. This bus ended up being significantly busier than the one we took from the airport when we arrived.

After arriving at YUL, we checked in and went through security and US CBP preclearance, effectively entering the US before leaving Canada.

We went to the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge in the transborder area of the airport. They had some hot items which were a bit better than expected.

Soon, we boarded a United Express E175 for the short flight back to IAD.