Montreal Day Ten - Tower Montreal & Jardin Botanique

This morning I headed back out to near the Biodomé, but this time to go up the Montréal Tower and to see the Jardin Botanique/Insectarium. I first headed up the tower – it looked like I’d be taking the trip up all by myself... but just as the cable car arrived so did the chinese tour group(!!) so it ended up being quite a packed ride. The view from up there was spectacular – you could see all of downtown Montréal, Mont Royale, Parc Jean Drapeau, as well as the Jardin Botanique.

The Biodomé & the TowerDowntown Montréal

Me on the observation deck.

After that I headed over to the Jardin Botanique and made a beeline for the Insectarium (hehe). There were lots of interesting bugs, scorpions and spiders though the majority of the samples were already dead and affixed to the wall.

Me out front of the Insectarium

Bug

More bugs!

After the insectariums I headed into the gardens. The gardens are actually MASSIVE and way more that I could cover in an entire day, let alone the few hours I had. I decided to go see the Japanese, First Nations, Alpine, Aquatic and Chinese gardens. I went to the Japanese garden first – they had a stack of Bonsai, a lovely exhibition garden with waterfalls and some GIANT Koi.

River in the Jap Garden

Giant Koi

Jap Garden

Next I headed into the First Nations Garden, which was a bit like walking through trail in a forest. It was lovely and cool and nice and quiet. After that I had a look at the Alpine Garden, which had samples from all around the world including the Alps, the Himalayas and the Rockies. I also walked through the aquatic garden which was funnily enough filled with water lilies and reeds.

Me in the forest
A waterfall in the alpine garden

Water lilies

I lastly headed to the Chinese Gardens. There was actually a lantern festival on at the time so the whole area was filled with paper lanterns throughout the entire garden. I originally wanted to come back during the evening to see the lanterns all lit up, however I didn’t really get the chance to.

Views of the Chinese Gardens

After walking through the gardens for a while I headed back into down town to do a little shopping – I managed to get souvenirs for pretty much everyone... and a few things for myself of course. I spent most of my last evening packing and getting ready for tomorrow. I took one final walk around and got dinner in a restaurant on Rue St Catherine and then I headed to bed.