After that very romantic evening on Mount Royal, we spent Sunday morning lazing around and enjoying the view from Michael’s apartment and balcony, eventually going out for some Indian brunch at Le Taj and then hitting up the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. There was this huge John William Waterhouse exhibit going on with that damn Lady of Shalott painting plastered all over the place (which only makes me think of Elizabeth Bishop’s wonderful poem “The Gentleman of Shalott”). I’ve never cared much for the Pre-Raphaelites, so we skipped that special exhibit and just made our way through the permanent collection. There were some lovely Pissarros and a nice representation of Modern art from the late 19th and early 20th century. Post-museum we wandered around downtown some more, visited some bookstores, and I got to visit the infamous underground city (felt very much like a mall with all the stores in the section we walked through, but I guess they are mainly tunnels wide enough to have stores on either side of the main walkway).
After a late afternoon nap (so much walking! so much fresh fall air!) we ventured out to the Botanical gardens to see a special Chinese Lantern Display. I will apologize in advance for the onslaught of lanterns you are about to witness.
But first, the Olympic Complex from when Montreal hosted the 1976 Summer Olympics:
It’s a weird structure, the roof held up by all these tension wires that connect to that large concrete diving-board-esque tower which is evidently the tallest inclined structure in the world. The building appears to be falling into disrepair. Kind of looks like a spaceship. Or a docking station for a spaceship.
Anyway, we passed it on our way to the Botanical Gardens where we encountered a very long line to get in to see The Magic of Lanterns. Totally worth it even though we spent the evening dodging empty strollers pushed by the children who were supposed to be riding inside them.
Here I am posing at the entrance to the Chinese gardens and lantern display:
Fancy roosters and hens:
Butterfly flutterby:
Cranes:
Acrobatic man with umbrellas:
I liked how her scarves and pose echoed the large rocks flanking her:
Musicians:
Flames!
Michael and me and a glowy liony friend with his ball:
Cool reflections:
More water features with tower in background:
Entering the bonsai pavilion:
Trippy bonsai pavilion:
Seahorses! Horsies! Er…
Are you bored yet? Do you feel captive as I show you my slides? And just think ,this is the edited version. So many more photos to show you…
Tiger…
Waterfall…
Fountain…
Okay I’ll stop there. So many lanterns! And two romantic nights in a row. I’m a lucky guy. 😉