Canada - Day 4

Woke to a beautiful, dry, sunny morning, so decided to head over to the Olympic Park.

Amanda waits for the hotel elevator:

A walk to the Square-Victoria–OACI metro station: 

We caught an Orange Line train to Berri-UQAM and changed to the Green Line to Pie-IX (pronounced pee neuf), where we alighted.  It was a 3-4 minute walk (through cavernous underground and largely empty tunnels and open spaces) to the Olympic Park.  

There was a very slightly faded and run-down air to the area, but perhaps that was unsurprising about a place designed for use some 43 years earlier.  Montreal, like so many Olympic host cities, seems to struggle a little in deciding what to do with their legacy architecture.

We made our way to the Biodome (originally the Olympic Velodrome); given our earlier experiences in Montreal we should not, of course, have been surprised to find that it was 'closed for building and development work' - but we were...

We made our way to the Stadium, complete with the Montreal Tower:

The Tower is the tallest (165m) inclined (45 degrees) structure in the world.  What I did not know until we visited it was that the Tower was not completed in time for the 1976 Olympics.

It had been planned that the 66-tonne, 5500 m2 Kevlar roof over the Stadium would be suspended from the Tower by steel cables; this aspect of the design was not completed until 1988, and in the time since then the roof has only been opened and closed 88 times.

None of that stopped us taking the lift up to the Observatory at the top of the Tower.  We chatted briefly to the ticket seller about Brexit and, since the UK was shortly about to play host to President Trump, also about whether we were ready to welcome him.  My response ("maybe with an Exocet") was rewarded by a painfully sharp dig in the ribs from Amanda and a loud guffaw from the ticket seller.

Packed into the lift with a large party of Japanese tourists we began our ascent:

The Olympic Village: 

More spectacular views in all directions:

The Saputo soccer specific stadium:

Part of the Kevlar Stadium roof:

The Japanese Garden in the Montreal Botanical Garden:

It being a Saturday morning there was a fun run in progress:

The journey down:

Back on terra firma we both spent some time taking a variety of photos, both 'arty':

and not:

Time to refuel:

and then make our way back to the Metro:

Back to Old Montreal for some general mooching about and people-watching:

We stopped briefly at our Thursday-evening dinner venue to get photos:

and then sat in the Place d'Armes for a while:

and then, via Starbucks, to our local convenience store for supplies before returning to the hotel for a short rest.

The weather forecast predicted rain for later that evening, and we reasoned that restaurants would also be busier than usual on a Saturday night.  Accordingly, we then headed out to Le Montparnasse (now permanently closed) for a very late lunch / very early dinner at around 15.30.

Amanda seemed quite happy with her "fruits de mer" salad:

For my part, this was the culinary low point of the holiday.  Those parts of my meal which should not have been well done were, and those which should have been were not:

It must be said that things did not improve significantly with the arrival of my sweet:

but Amanda did enjoy her profiteroles (Amanda always enjoys profiteroles):

A moderately rapid return to the hotel in late-afternoon drizzle, and an evening spent relaxing in front of the TV.