Urban museum and gallery ride

Since we're taking our time recovering from the big Vermont ride of a couple of days ago, we decided to do some easy urban riding and go over and see a museum, a gallery, and some historical buildings.

First Stop: Musée des Ondes Emile Berliner in St-Henri.

This hole in the wall museum tells the history of radio, with a large number of artifacts from early radio. The location of the museum is in the RCA factory, RCA was the IBM/Intel/Microsoft of it's day. Radio launched the whole electronic mass communication thing, and it changed the world into the one we know today.


Inside the Musée des Ondes Emile Berliner

Originally sound was recorded onto wax cylinders. The flat round disks we know today owe their origin to Berliner.


The Berliner Gramophone - "Beware of trashy imitations" it says.

The museum is located on the second floor of an industrial building (the historic RCA factory) at the corner of Lacasse and Richelieu, in the shadow of the Autoroute Ville-Marie. Lacasse is one way, so drive up St-Marguerite from St-Antoine.


Old RCA Factory on Lacasse

Second Stop: Parisian Laundry gallery - one site for the Montreal Bienalle exhibition.

We were entranced by the Graeme Patterson's Woodrow exhibition. Click the link to see a video of this show at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.

The Parisian Laundry is at the corner of St-Antoine and Bel-Air in St-Henri - to get there just ride (no don't drive!) west from Atwater. This is an impressive new gallery space. More evidence of the gentrification of St-Henri... the poor people are f*****!


Parisian Laundry

Next we rode to the Lachine Canal


Boating near downtown on the Lachine Canal

and then we turned south and went into Point St-Charles.



Bike path does not magically pass through solid wall


The plan was to visit the historic and pre-industrial Maison St-Gabriel.



Remember to look for blue tourism signs

It was late and the Maison St-Gabriel was closed when we got there.


Maison St-Gabriel

So instead we rode around the colossal-sized sculpture in the nearbly Park Margerite Bourgeois.


Big Sculpture

Then we rode back to the Canal, then east to the Vieux Port and watched the tourists pedalling around the Bassin Bonsecours. This "bassin" is one of my favorite places in all of Montreal, a jewel.



One of my favorite spots in Montreal


Now it's your turn, here's the route:


Le route