Montreal - Part III

DAY THREE

Weather: about 7 degrees and it started out sunny, but when we ventured out - there was no sun to be found.

For breakfast we had a chocolate-banana loaf with cream and raisins, and then a fried egg sandwich with fresh fruit.

We fully planned out our day this time. I researched times and distances of all the places we were planning on visiting today.

Because our Bed & Breakfast wasn't very far away, we decided to walk to the Botanical Gardens and Insectarium in the morning. We purchased a package that let us visit the gardens, the insectarium, and the Biodome.

Because it was still cold, we started out in the greenhouses and then worked our way outdoors in hopes of it becoming warmer. We saw orchids, begonias, cactus, ferns, and South American flowers. Some of the rooms were really warm, and we didn't want to leave them.

There was so much to see outside, we limited the gardens that we wanted to see for this visit. We chose the rose garden, the Chinese garden and the Japanese garden.

In the rose garden we saw very few roses in bloom because of the cold. We did end up seeing a duck asleep near a fountain in the garden. We found the Insectarium - and Will was still cold, so we headed in.

We got to weigh ourselves in ants. Will weighed 3, 500, 000 ants, and I weighed 3, 250, 000 ants.

Next we headed to the Japanese Pavilion and saw some bonsais that we learned later were over 370 years old. Will fell in love with the waterfalls.

We managed to find our way into the Chinese Garden and learned that they don't use grass in their gardens. It was so very beautiful - even without the grass. Will was also so amazed by the water around everywhere.

We decided to pass on the Biodome today, and would head out there first thing Friday morning.

We even planned out where we were going to have lunch to incorporate into our busy schedule. Will loves St. Hubert, so we headed there for lunch downtown.

We walked back to the Architecture Musee (and yes, it was open) and went in to discover that there wasn't much going on as they were preparing for a celebatory ball the following evening.

We saw an exhibit by Gilles Clement and I fell in love with his art called Le Lustre, which is glass drops filled with ordinary things found on the street. It looks so pretty, and unique.

They also had a fully restored Victorian House as part of the museum, but there were too many things going on for the ball preparation, that we didn't fully admire it, as we could have.

We went to the front of the museum and all you could see was the Victorian House - it looked gorgeous!

We walked to the Queen Mary of the World Cathedral on the way to St. Patrick's Basilica. We passed this huge, gorgeous building, and later learned it was the Sun Life Building (insurance company) created in the early 1900s.

We walked to the Christ Church Cathedral and waited until admission was free for the Contemporary Art Musee at 6pm. I was fascinated by the neon exhibition of Bruce Nauman. You could tell that he had a large sense of humour. We also ran into some rooms where all you had were televisions on opposite ends of the room saying different phrases like "eat me, hurt me, anthropology" or "eat me, hurt me, sociology"

We decided to head to rue Crescent for dinner, not knowing where exactly we were planning on eating. We had heard that Crescent is known for its liveliness and is considered to be the street that never sleeps.

We found our way into a Mexican Restaurant and sat on the patio, while we had a clear shot of the potential Stanley Cup Final game across the street. We each had some enchiladas with rice, and it was delish!

We stopped in at Ben & Jerry's for some ice cream and made it home in time to see the Anaheim Mighty Ducks win the Stanley Cup. Will was a little sad, but he got over it pretty quickly - we were in Montreal!!

Pictures from top to bottom: Me smelling some beautiful Princess Diana orchids; Will pretending to be a butterfly; In the Chinese garden, I'm in front of the Tower of the Condensing Clouds; Le Lustre exhibit by Gilles Clement; the front of the Architecture Musee; the children's room inside St. Patrick's Basilica; Me pretending to be part of the fountain outside the Contemporary Art Musee