8/12/13

The Leaning Tower of Montréal


Every big city I know has some towering structure to show off. Sorta chest thumping in their own concrete jungle. Or displaying the ultimate urban phallic symbol for all to see. While Dubai has Burj Khalifa, Kuala Lumpur has Petronas Towers, Paris has the Eiffel, Montréal has its own rising above the city - the Montréal Tower.

What makes this tower unique is not so much for its height. At 165 meters high, it ain't in the league of the super statuesque out there. It's not even Montréal's tallest. Rather, the fact that it's leaning at an angle of 45 degrees - more than the Tower of Pisa's 5-degree incline - makes it a very unique structure in its own right.

It is the world's tallest man-made leaning tower.

City Hall
Downtown Montréal
In Montréal's Chinatown, even Chinese fortune cookies churn out French

We arrived into French-speaking Montréal late in the afternoon. Like the rest of North America in summer, it wasn't getting dark well past 9 PM so we drove eastward away from city center into Parc Olympique (Olympic Park), home to many of the venues of the 1976 Summer Olympics.

Lording it over the entire park is the tower, connected to the massive Le Stade Olympique de Montréal (Montréal Olympic Stadium). From where we stood, the tower looks like an inverted torch leaning way too much, as if about to crash into the stadium itself. Outside on its curved spine is a bi-level funicular bringing guests to the top. We joined the queue to pay for entrance tickets.

Funicular
Montréal skyline
Partial view of the stadium rooftop

When the stadium was being built in the early 1970s, the French architect Roger Taillibert envisioned a tower which will serve as a mast for the retractable roof. However, delays kept plaguing the project: worker's strike, budget overruns, and the unusual design itself. The Montreal Olympic Games opened with a  partially finished stadium (without a roof) and without the tower that we now see.

Only after the 1976 games did construction on the tower resumed and an observatory was added to the plan. In 1987, or eleven years later, the tower and the stadium's roof finally got completed. Construction cost had ballooned to more than a billion Canadian dollars, leaving Montrealers gasping at this so-called "Big Owe" (Taxpayers had to shoulder paying this enormous debt after all). To make matters worse, ongoing  repair and maintenance costs are high.


Not surprisingly, going up the tower is an expensive experience - we shelled 22.50 CAD per person. The sting is even more pronounced with the currently weaker US dollar. But lo and behold, many of those taking the ride were actually Americans. Two minutes was all it took for the 76-person capacity funicular to haul all of us to the tower's observatory.

Up there, we got great views of downtown Montréal, St. Lawrence river, and all other attractions within the Olympic Park. Great views which momentarily make me forget the hefty cost of going up there.

18 comments:

  1. LOL on the Big Owe!

    This along with Quebec City are still on my bucket list. I cannot wait to see what I can learn from your visit. Is this your first visit to this province?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yup, this was my first visit to Quebec. It's amusing to hear French spoken as if we were in France!

      Delete
  2. Spectacular tour! the buildings looking glorious. such a great destination to visit....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for visiting. Quebec is a beautiful destination meant not just for Francophones :)

      Delete
  3. Wow, the ticket is really expensive and it's not that high ;-) but interesting to see how it leans. I like the city hall structure though hehehe

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Many other visitors said the same thing but when you're taking a ride through the world's tallest inclined tower, I guess that lessens the sting.

      Delete
  4. Montreal is one of the cities that I want to go the most, even if I had to only pick one city in Canada to visit, I wouldn't hesitate to choose Montreal. Despite the construction cost, having such a unique building would work well in attracting visitors, I guess.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Bama! You won't go wrong with Montreal (and Quebec City if I may add). With the high cost of building Olympic stadiums, I'm not surprised why visitors are being charged just for visiting them.

      Delete
  5. Oh my, have you googled translate the Frech quote, I mean the Chinese verse inside that fortune cookie?

    Stunning views!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Doc Gelo, there was actually an English version on the flip side: "whichever side of the brain you use, you use it perfectly". :)

      Delete
  6. Indeed iconic. Something that could make us remember Montreal :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Architects and designers play a big role in imprinting these to our consciousness.

      Delete
  7. I love Montreal - it feels the most European out of Canada's larger cities, so sophisticated, creative, and full of French joie de vivre. My older brother and sister both studied there so that was a perfect excuse to visit. Will you also have a separate post covering old Montreal and Vieux-Port? Personally I felt that the area had even more charm and magic than Quebec City. :)

    I visited to the Biodome back in 2002 but we didn't go up the leaning tower. The view is wonderful, but you're right - 22.50 CAD is seriously expensive, you could eat a good meal for that amount!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was my first time in Montreal but we only spent a night there since we headed off to Quebec the next day. I missed a lot for sure but I'm planning to go back and see more of the city. Interesting you mentioned Montreal has more charm and magic than Quebec City - which of course shows everyone always has a different take on destinations.
      Now if only I could snag a free air ticket to Montreal (it's a pain in the ass being on the road haha!)

      Delete
  8. Just saw this now, as I was on vacation. But wow, why is everyone heading to Montreal? First, my sister went and raved about it, and now you?!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Montreal's one of those not-so-far destinations (about 7 hours drive by car) I have shelved for so long. When an opportunity arose this summer, I simply couldn't put it in the back burner again. Unfortunately, my traveling companion's schedule didn't permit a long stay so all I had were fleeting glimpses :( I shall return!

      Delete
  9. I have not heard of the Leaning Tower of Montreal. Looks like the hefty ticket price was worth the view from the top (and you helped repay the taxpayers' dollars:) Love the photo of the fortune cookie with French missive.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Marisol! While it was expensive, I try to justify the cost with the experience of "being there" and seeing a new destination on a different level.

      Delete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...