I had our time in Montreal all planned out, with Sunday at the Olympic Park and Monday spent visiting the attractions in the city. Then I realised many of the musums are closed on a Monday at this time of year. To add insult to injury, many places closed at 5pm. Panic! Change of plan to do as much as possible of the stuff that would be closed Monday today instead. A mad dash round Montreal ensued. In a way this worked out well as we spent the day at various indoor attractions, which was good in view of the horrible wet weather. We bought a Montreal Museum Pass with unlimited public transport for $50 each, and determined to get as much use of it as possible!
First we did head for the Olympic Park to visit the Biodome. Previously the cycling stadium for the 76 Montreal Olympics, this cycling-helmet-shaped building now houses several examples of the different ecosystems in the Americas, from the polar worlds of the Arctic and Antarctic (penguins, puffins and other sea-birds), through the Laurentian Mountains (where we're heading tomorrow) with beavers and porcupines, to the underwater life of the St Lawrence river where we've just been. Finally, there was the tropical rainforest from South America, where we saw some very cute Golden Lion Tamarins and caimans among other things. It was a really cool place, nice to see various species interacting in a fairly realistic environment (apart from the roof of course), and roaming pretty freely. They could have ventured onto the public paths and interacted with the visitors but most didn't, and it was refreshing not to be bombarded with warnings that 'these animals may bite' etc. The water exhibits were great fun, and we spent a while watching the penguins swimming about, and watching ducks dive to the bottom of the 'river bed' for food - I had no idea they could swim so far underwater!
After a quick lunch we headed over to the Musee d'Art Contemporain. It wasn't quite what we'd expected and in some ways a bit disappointing, but the highlight was 'Projection', a series of music videos by various directors using different and unusual filming techniques. These were all really cool and the show took up the best part of an hour with artists such as Kaiser Chiefs, Radiohead, Dave Gahan and Feist.
Next we popped to the Canadian Centre for Architecture, which turned out to be an interesting little cultural gem. Fortunately the rain had stopped and the sky cleared a bit for the walk and metro journey back to the hotel. A quick freshen up and a drink and a snack in the hotel bar, and then we were off out again.
This time the rain was torrential and the puddles pretty sizeable. Still, we soldiered on, caught the metro a couple of stops and arrived at the Planetarium in plenty of time for our show. Some duff information from the tourist information meant we ended up at the French language show, but we carried on regardless, and sat back watching the stars for a while. The show celebrated the 400th anniversary of Galileo's invention of the telescope, as well as showing the night sky as it is at the moment (or would be in nicer weather).
Time for another dinner in a nice little French/Quebecois restaurant, where we arrived dripping wet. After a nice meal we headed back to the hotel, cold, tired and rather bedraggled. Another packed day!
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