Showing Grammie The Sights

Arabella has become quite the tour guide since we moved here. The first place Arabella took Grammie was the Olympic Stadium and Botanical Gardens. We were planning on also going to the Biodome, but it has been closed since June due to a Labor dispute, which is not uncommon in Montreal. Arabella was very excited to go up to the top of the Montréal Tower Observatory. The Observatory is located in the highest inclined tower in the world, with its 175-metre elevation and 45-degree angle. The Tower of Pisa, by comparison, has a 5-degree angle. From the top of the Observatory, you can see the whole city of Montreal, the River, and up to 80 kilometers in each direction which would include the Laurentian Mountains. To get to the top of the Observatory, you have to take a funicular´s which is like a big elevator which travels up the outside of the Observatory. The cabin of the funicular has large windows that allow for a panorama of Montréal during the ascent and descent. The funicular-which travels 2.8 metres per second-makes approximately along its 266 metres of rail and each ascension takes less than 2 minutes. The views from the Observatory were beautiful and it is so different when you see the city from up high. It was also fun to pick out places where we have been.











After the Observatory, we walked to the Montreal Botanical Gardens. I was amazed by the size of the Gardens and it such a gem tucked away in a busy part of the City. It reminded me of the New York Botanical Gardens, a place for quiet and peace in a bustling urban area. The Gardens have a collection of 22,000 plant species and cultivars, 10 exhibition greenhouses, some thirty thematic gardens, and the Montréal Botanical Garden ranks as one of the world's largest botanical gardens. They even had a large playground for Arabella and she had fun playing there for a while. Arabella enjoyed running around and leading the way on the walking paths. She and Grammie had fun looking for fish in the Japanese Garden. She also had fun riding the train around the Gardens, we actually had to take 2 rides on it since she was having so much fun. We had perfect weather and it was nice to spend it outside, enjoying natures beauty with my 2 favorite people!