Yesterday we rented bikes from a nearby shop with a discount for people at our hotel (they pay the 15% tax for us). We took them out for about 5 hours in total, and used the city's dedicated bikes lanes to go to Parc du Mont Royal, a park for the "mountain" in the middle of the city. It was mostly uphill on the way and gave us a good workout. At least coming back was easy. The mountain's trail was 6 km, and it must have been at least that to get there. We also wanted to go to another island that wasn't too far, but it turned out we had to cross a really high bridge that cars go on, and we didn't want to do that so we turned around.

Today we slept in late and went to the Biodome, a giant zoo/aquarium sort of place with four major habitats (tropics, temperate forest, maritime, and arctic). All of the environments but the first (tropical) can be found in Canada. The tropical area had capyberas, sloths, and caimons running around, along with lots of birds and little monkeys. Then there was the Laurentian forest region, with otters, lynxes, and beavers. The coastal/tidal region had starfish and lots of really big fish. The final region was the arctic with puffins and penguins. There was also a temporary exhibition on animal mating rituals, which was really interesting and interactive. It was quite a neat place, but horribly crowded today. Strangely all the food options, including a large cafeteria, were shut down except a tiny cafe which had a really long line as a result. We were even eating there after the main lunch rush, so I think that must have been a nightmare. I think the Biodome building was an old Olympic structure, as it was next to the Olympic track stadium, so they made good use of it after the Olympics.

Tomorrow we will take a bus to Toronto and then the next day rent a car to go to Niagara and the Great Lakes, hopefully for more camping if the weather is good.