Planetarium Rio Tinto Alcan

Although the Planetarium has a temporary exhibit at the present, the real attraction is the two shows to which your Planetarium ticket or Museum Pass grants you access. Note: you will have to look up the show-times in advance, which can be found here: http://espacepourlavie.ca/en/planetarium-show-schedule. In general, there are two shows-- one in a dome-shaped screen theater where viewers lie on beanbags on the floor; the second is a traditional planetarium-style room with stars projected on the ceiling and movie-theatre seats.

When we visited, the Chaos theatre (beanbag chairs) was showing an artist's perspective of the universe and it zooms straight upwards in a rollercoaster fashion. It was gorgeous visuals, no audio (so no clue why they wouldn't just admit us to the French language showing), and a spectacular show. Since then it seems that a new installation has been brought in, so check the planetarium website before you visit for the latest info.

The Milky Way Theatre (traditional planetarium-style showing room) gives a two-part show with the first being all celestial eye candy, and the second being a breakdown of common constellations, where they can be seen and when. Once again, you will need to check the site to confirm the showings during your planned visit.

Note that if you'd like to check your coats at the Planetarium, there is a $2 fee that you will not get back.

Biodome

A giant dome shelters a ton of animal habitats from all over the globe. The Biodome is a part of Museum pass, too! This is must-see - it's like an indoor-zoo where you can learn about all the biomes of the world. 

A puffin rests near the glass

A penguin rolls on it's belly

Though the sloths aren't out at this time of the year (too cold), the penguins are full of vim and vigor and are situated near the end of the walk through the dome. 

Botanical Garden

If there is a must-see item in Montreal, it has to be the Botanical Garden (Jardin botanique). Not only does it have a ton of greenhouses linked together that are nice and toasty warm, but also a massive outdoor garden with segregated sections for the plants' different home regions.

Groomed bonsai trees and unusual cacti fill the greenhouses.

During our visit, there was an exhibition of local childrens' pumpkin artwork.

One section of the outdoor garden is devoted to alpine plants.

Currently, a "light-show" goes on every night in the Chinese section of the garden.

Don't miss the Chinese section of the garden that has huge gazebos and currently hosts a wide assortment of paper lanterns made specifically for the garden. Apparently, a new batch of impressive lanterns is shipped over every year for display.

If you have a Museum Pass, you can get free entry into the Botanical Garden and adjacent Insectarium (which is filled with insect specimens from all over the world).

Beware Possible Metro Scam

If you are traveling with your suitcases through the metro, you may have difficulties with the turn-style and getting your baggage through. When I was having difficulty one time, a young man came up and offered to pass it over to me after I had gone through. I quickly rejected the offer, thanked him and moved along. However, I could see a more trusting person easily accepting his offer and there is a chance that he could have run off with the bag instead of passing it over the turn-style.

To avoid putting yourself in this vulnerable situation, simply ask the attendant to let you use the handicap lane, if there is one. If there is no handicap-accessible lane, pick up your baggage and put it on the other side of the turn-style after you have successfully swiped or inserted your ticket. Keep a hand through a strap on your bag at all times.

Museum Pass: Worth it?

After reviewing your touring options, you may be wondering whether the Museum pass is worthwhile to you. I would say that it depends on how interested you are in museums and historical sites as well as how much time you like to devote to each place you visit.

Note: The $5 extra to get public transit covered will be worthwhile to you as not all the locations are nearby one another. The plus for the non-transit museum pass is that you can pick any three days out of the year to use it, they don't have to be consecutive. I'm harping on the public transit pass option because that is what I purchased when I was there, so that is what I have experience with.

Materials received: red Museum pass card, metro pass (white L'occasionelle ticket),
several coupons for local attractions (yellow), a metro map, and plastic sleeve.

Should I buy the pass?
Each museum charges between $12 - 20 for a single admission. So to at least match what you have dished out initially for the pass (currently $75 without transit option), you would want to visit a minimum of 4 - 6 sites over the three days. This is more than feasible - it's easy, so if you're dedicating your time to museums and historical sites, you should definitely purchase the pass.

To maximize your benefit:
If you are planning to devote 1.5 - 2 hours to each site, you can probably see four sites in a day (as most places are open 10a - 5p) in a pretty fast-paced day. In total, you would then see 12 sites over the three day span, which means you saved 1/2 the dough you would've spent on paying each individual admission.

Sample itinerary 1:
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
McCord Museum
Montreal Science Center
Pointe-à-Callière Museum

Sample itinerary 2:
Planetarium
Biodôme
Chateau Dufresne
Botanical Garden
Insectarium
(The Olympic Stadium is in the area, too)

What about the annual pass?
Based on the above sites-per-day calculation, you would have to visit between 12-18 sites to at least make up the initial cost of the pass. If you are staying for 5 days or more, this might be the best option for you. If you are traveling with a friend or spouse, the deal gets much sweeter a single annual pass grants you both admissions into the sites (a single person gets two individual visits to each site). Unfortunately, this option does not include any public transit, so you'd have to take on that cost separately.

Final Note
It would be hard to spot on the Montreal Museums pass site, however, the 3-days-plus-transit pass is activated as soon as you buy it. Therefore if you buy it at 5pm on a Wednesday, it will be active from 5pm Wednesday through Saturday 5pm.

Gare d'Autocars de Montréal

If you are riding a bus into Montreal, you will most likely be arriving at the bus terminal aka the Gare d'Autocars. Busses pull up to covered parking spaces in front of doors into the station. When you arrive, you'll debark into the terminal where there are ticket counters, gift shops, free-to-use restrooms in pretty clean condition, and a direct entrance to the metro.

To get to the metro, which is a bit of a walk away currently, walk toward the front of the building (opposite where the bus dropped you off) and go downstairs. You'll have to walk up and down some stairs, (there is an elevator if you need one), but the entire route is enclosed in the building. The walk won't take you more than 15 minutes, however, it goes past a desolate area under renovation (as of this writing), so don't walk it alone.

On Riding the Metro

Ticket or Multi-Trip or Multi-Day Pass?

Depending on the number of trips you want to make, you'll have to determine whether it's more beneficial to purchase individual tickets or a multi-day pass. Individual tickets cost $3 right now, whereas a 1-day pass will cost you $10. So you would have to be taking at least 4 trips (a trip is from when you enter a metro station to when you exit a metro station), otherwise it's more economical to purchase individual tickets. Check the public transit available fares on http://www.stm.info/en before you travel to determine your best options. For us, we ended up buying individual tickets for two days, then using the unlimited public transit add-on option of the museum pass. If you are a party animal, go for the unlimited weekend pass that allows travel Friday 6pm through Monday 5am. 

Multi-day or multi-trip passes are loaded on a multi-use OPUS card (so hand on to it as long as it is valid), but single and double trip tickets are printed on paper tickets. 

Paying

If you have a credit card without a chip (the following is an example of a card with a chip embedded), you will need to buy your ticket or pass from customer service.  

Example of a card with embedded chip

Your best bet for easy ticket-purchasing is to just use cash to purchase your tickets from the automated machine. To use your paper ticket, slide it into the (arrow-indicator green) turn-style's post in the card slot. If you purchased a pass (which comes on an OPUS card), you simply hold it above the turn-style and it will scan. 

Riding the Metro

Use your common sense! If you have a pet, keep it in it's carrier. If you're talking on a phone (good luck with signal underground, though), stand near the end of the car and keep your conversation quiet. Give up your seat for elderly people, handicapped people, pregnant people, or anyone who looks unwell. For comfortable riding, avoid the peak usage hours (9-10am and 5-6p Monday through Friday) otherwise you may be crammed in or even waiting for a non-full car to arrive so you can squeeze into it. It is illegal to hold the door open for others (listen for the sound made when the doors are about to close) - if you get caught, you'll be smacked with a big fine. 

Mont Royal

Ah, Mont Royal - Montreal's foresty, hilly namesake. From the top, spectacular views. All around - woodsy trails. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

If you're looking to get lost, you've come to the right place!

Mont Royal is smack-dab in the middle of the city. We walked there (a grueling 1.5 hour walk, I might add) from the apartment at which we were staying. Probably not the brightest idea considering the best thing about the park is the walking trails. 

Winding trails lead up the side of the mountain. Although one could probably spend all day walking and not make it to the top, we opted to whip out Google Maps when we arrived at the scenic overlook marking the 1/2-way point.

The hike was worth it!

Finally, after a bit of input from Google Maps (which surprisingly displays all of the trails in the park!) we make it to the top where a chateau sits cosily overlooking the entire city. I mean it - on a clear day, you can see the watery borders around the city. Unfortunately, we did not pick a clear, sunny day for our Mont Royal adventure.

Still, gorgeous park, free to enter, clean, winding trails - what more could you ever ask for?!

Getting to Montreal: By Bus

How should I get to Montreal, you might ask?

Well it certainly depends on where you live and what your plans are. For instance, if you happen to be visiting (or living in) Burlington or Boston, there's a Greyhound bus that can hop you right over (of course, you still have to go through customs both ways). A few other New England cities have bus routes that can hop you over, but the rest of the US will probably have to take a plane.

Taking a bus from Burlington to Montreal was much more affordable than flying. It cost us $35 each to go roundtrip.

The downside, because of course there is one, is that Greyhound can be unreliable. During our trip, the bus from Boston that would pick us up at BTV broke down in transit. The next bus did not arrive until over 4 hours later and it was crammed full of people. So despite the fact we had been waiting all day, we were smooshed to the back of the bus near the toilet - not a fun experience, I can assure you.

All-in-all, if I could do it all over again, I would have separated my Burlington and Montreal trips so that I could fly to Montreal instead of taking the bus.

Jean-Talon Market

Jean-Talon Market - right off of Jean-Talon St E!

We happened to be staying only a few blocks from this market during our recent trip to Montreal and wow! - they have a lot of delicious treats! Naturally, there are many, many, many produce stands that span the majority of the market. However, near the NE entrance, you can find a smoothie stand, crepe stand, several kiosks selling baked goods, fresh cheeses and meats, and other ready-to-eat noms. Our favorite stand? The macaron stand!!

Merengue-reminiscent bits of heaven!

If you don't happen to be staying near Jean-Talon St, the best way to get here is probably by metro (if you are within the metro service area) as the Jean-Talon station is on both the orange/red and blue lines.

Museum Pass: Olympic Stadium Observatory

Not what you think.

This vague coupon does not come close to describing what it does. One might think this is the ticket a free trip up to the observatory that hangs over the stadium. Then one would be terribly wrong. This ticket gets you a Buy One, Get One (BOGO) admission. In other words, you purchase one full price admission and you get another admission free. Sorry, Museum Pass, I was hoping I could get in completely free.

Vegetarian in Montreal: Poutine

A meat-gravy-slathered poutine, courtesy of Wikipedia.

If you are a new vegetarian or simply live in an area with many veggie-heads, you might not have experienced this tidbit. Never assume a dish is vegetarian - even if there is no meat listed in the description. One prime example is poutine - which is made with meat-grease. We were lucky to ask before ordering and found this one out by chance. Don't be caught unawares - if you are vegetarian, ask before you order any dish. Vegetarianism hasn't spread through Canada as much as the US (yet).

To prevent any possible meat-related schemes entering your meal, seek out vegan or vegetarian restaurants that do not serve any meat products. You might pay a little more, but it's worth it.