Montreal Layover at Olympic Park
Part of the full Montreal Layover Guide: Old Montreal From YUL
Olympic Park, the 1976 Games site in east Montreal, now holds five American ecosystems rebuilt inside the old velodrome, a 75-hectare botanical garden with a Chinese garden built by Shanghai craftsmen, and an insect museum you enter through a tunnel under a hill.
Five American ecosystems sit inside the Biodome
The building was the velodrome for the 1976 Games, and when the track came out what went in was a set of climates. A tropical rainforest with its own humidity, the Gulf of St Lawrence with a tidal tank, a Laurentian maple forest that changes with the seasons, the cliffs of the Labrador coast with auks on them, and a sub-Antarctic room where gentoo penguins live at the temperature they would at home.
Ninety minutes covers it at a reasonable pace, and it is entirely indoors, which decides the argument on a wet or cold day. It belongs to Espace pour la vie, the city’s natural-sciences museum group, and a combined ticket covering this, the Botanical Garden, the Insectarium and the Planetarium runs somewhere in the CA$55 to CA$65 range for an adult and stays valid for 30 days, which is cheaper than paying at four separate doors.
Fifty Shanghai artisans built the Botanical Garden’s Chinese garden
Brother Marie-Victorin founded the garden in 1931, and it has grown to 75 hectares holding 22,000 plant species and cultivars, ten exhibition greenhouses and more than twenty thematic gardens. It was named a National Historic Site of Canada in 2008.
The Chinese garden was put up between 1990 and 1991 by fifty craftsmen brought over from Shanghai, and it works the way a garden in Suzhou does: pavilions arranged around a lake, rockwork framing the views, nothing visible all at once. The Japanese garden of 1988 covers 2.5 hectares on the same grounds and is the quieter of the two. Every autumn the Chinese garden is hung with silk lanterns after dark, which is the single busiest thing that happens here all year.
The Insectarium sits on the same grounds and reopened in April 2022 in a new building by the Berlin practice Kuehn Malvezzi with two Montreal firms, after they won the competition for it in 2014. You go in downhill, through a garden and then into passages of textured concrete that open into cavern-shaped rooms; the Grand Vivarium at the end lets butterflies fly loose around visitors, with leaf-cutter ants, giant beetles and scorpions behind glass nearby.
Two metro stations serve the park, and neither is the airport bus
Pie-IX and Viau both put you within a few minutes of the site, which is unusual for a Montreal attraction and useful given how spread out the grounds are. Neither connects to the airport directly: the metro runs west across the city to where line 747 leaves for Montréal-Trudeau International Airport (YUL).
That bus is 24 hours a day, every ten to twenty minutes, CA$11.25, with the same ticket covering the rest of the network for 24 hours. Riding time is about 30 to 35 minutes from Lionel-Groulx or 45 to 70 minutes on the full run from Berri-UQAM, so allow an hour and a half from the park to the terminal and be there three hours before an international departure. This corner of the city is a long way from anything in the Montreal layover guide, which keeps to the old quarter and the river, so treat this as the alternative rather than an add-on.
The Montreal Tower leans 45 degrees and is shut until 2027
Roger Taillibert’s mast rises 165 metres over the stadium roof at a 45-degree incline, which makes it the tallest inclined tower anywhere. The funicular that used to carry visitors up it in two minutes is part of a rebuild of the whole visitor operation, and the current plan reopens it in spring 2027 with rooftop access and a new glass cabin.
Until then it is a thing to stand under rather than go up, which is worth knowing before you come out here expecting a view. The attractions that are open sit across more than a kilometre of open ground with outdoor walking between every one of them, and nothing on the site will take a bag off your hands while you cross it.
Frequently asked questions
What should I do during a layover near Olympic Park in Montreal?
Pick two of the museums rather than trying for all of them, because they are spread across more than a kilometre of open ground. The Biodome, inside the 1976 velodrome, walks you through five American ecosystems in about ninety minutes and is the one most people rate highest. The Botanical Garden next door runs to 75 hectares with ten exhibition greenhouses and a Chinese garden built by Shanghai artisans, and it needs a good two hours to be worth the ticket. The Montreal Tower's observatory is shut for rebuilding, so do not plan the afternoon around the view.
Is the Montreal Tower observatory open?
No. The Olympic Park is rebuilding the tower's visitor floors and the funicular that runs up it, and the current plan puts the reopening in spring 2027 with rooftop access and a new glass cabin. Until then the tower is something to look at rather than go up. It is still worth the two minutes from the plaza: 165 metres of concrete leaning at 45 degrees, which makes it the tallest inclined tower in the world.
Is Olympic Park a good stop with kids?
It is the best one in Montreal for it. The Biodome has gentoo penguins in its sub-Antarctic room and auks on the Labrador coast section, both behind glass at child height. The Insectarium, rebuilt and reopened in April 2022, is entered down a hill and through tunnels of textured concrete, and its Grand Vivarium lets butterflies fly loose around the room alongside leaf-cutter ants and giant beetles. Buying the multi-museum pass rather than single tickets makes sense with more than one child in tow, and it stays valid for 30 days.
Which metro station should you use for Olympic Park?
It depends which end of the site you want, because two stations serve it and they are not interchangeable once you are on foot. Viau sits closest to the Biodome and the stadium, a short walk straight in from the exit. Pie-IX is the one for the Botanical Garden and the Insectarium at the northern end of the grounds. Getting the wrong one is not a disaster, but the site runs more than a kilometre end to end with outdoor walking the whole way, so it can cost fifteen minutes you were not planning to spend.