Beautiful Montreal /// The Botanical Gardens and Olympic Stadium /// Walk with me

I had a visit from my mother and nephew last week and as we went to one of my favorite places in Montreal, The Botanical Gardens! If you have never visited it is one of the few places in the city where you can really escape and take in nature. I don't visit nearly as often as I'd like to but when I have visitors I get to temporarily be a tourist in my own city which is quite fun!

Some facts from wikipedia:

The Montreal Botanical Garden (French: Jardin botanique de Montréal) is a large botanical garden in Montreal, Quebec, Canada comprising 75 hectares (190 acres) of thematic gardens and greenhouses. It was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 2008 as it is considered to be one of the most important botanical gardens in the world due to the extent of its collections and facilities.

WOW! One of the most important in the world!

The botanical gardens are right next to the Olympic Stadium (pictured below) which is a very oddly shaped building that was built in 1976 to host the Summer Olympics:

The various gardens are all gorgeous, one of my faves are The Alpine Gardens. These gardens are full of rugged looking terrain interspersed with pretty wildflowers and rock formations:

The gardens have lots of wonderful sculptures sprinkled around too (I believe all made by local artists):

One of my favorite parts is the greenhouse, specifically in the tropical section. They keep it very warm and humid and the aroma of all the tropical plants is to die for. I usually walk around there breathing as deeply as I can, knowing that this is probably the purest air I will ever breathe in this city :D

Another fun part of the greenhouse is the Bonsai section!

Within the gardens there is also an Insectarium which features many live creepy crawlies and also mounted specimens from around the world. There were so many beetles it made my head spin.

They also had a ton of butterflies, this was one of my favorites, I believe it is part of the family called Death's-head hawkmoth, pretty badass!

This display case was full of the most colorful beetles I've ever seen! As an artist I found this on very inspiring and it is easy to see how different cultures may have also taken inspiration from these natural patterns to dye fabric, make beads etc. The variation is absolutely stunning.

If you ever visit Montreal I strongly urge you to add The Botanical Gardens to your list of places to visit. We spent about 4 hours there and didn't even get to visit every garden, you could easily pass an entire day here and I promise you won't be disappointed!

_{All photos taken by me :)}