Calgary doesn't have a huge number of tourist attractions. Due to commitments back home we hadn't managed to time our visit to coincide with the Calgary Stampede, so we were left with the Calgary Tower, the Glenbow museum, the zoo and a few other minor attractions.
The plan for today was to visit everything except the zoo. My mum tagged along while Ros stayed home and did some chores. We used the local 'C-Train' transit system to get to the downtown area (after driving to the station of course - no day would be complete without getting in the car at least once), arriving at a stop just a block from the Glenbow Museum so we elected to start our day there. The museum was spread over three main floors, one dedicated to local history (all 100 years of it), one of odds and ends and another with some interesting exhibits such as african history and a large collection of Buddha statues through the ages.
All in all, it ended up taking quite a while so before we'd even finished the museum we broke for lunch. What immediately struck us was how quiet Calgary was, for a saturday lunchtime in a city of a million people we expected it to be heaving yet the streets were almost deserted. We could only surmise that since July 1st is 'Canada Day' that everyone had used the long weekend to get out of town.
Anyway, after a fairly standard lunch we went back to the Glenbow, checked out the last few exhibits, and then moved onto Calgary tower. It claims to be the 'highest tourist attraction above sea level' or words to that effect but to be honest it's more of a linguistic achievement than a technical one, it's no higher than the Seattle Space Needle and it's only because Calgary itself is over 3000 feet above see level that it can make the claim. Since you can't actually see the sea from the tower (there's the small issue of the Rockies getting in the way) it seems like a rather pointless claim to me.
Nonetheless, the view from the tower is interesting, if somewhat spoiled by the more recent skyscrapers - 3 of which are actually taller than the tower itself. The best bit was the glass floor on which you can stand and look straight down at the city. The glass has allegedly been strengthened to withstand the weight of two hippos but it was still enough to make my knees feel a bit wobbly. Especially when some of the American tourists stood on it, at a glance you could easily have mistaken them for hippos.
Back down at ground level we strolled over to the modern art museum. It's a fairly small building which had just two installations - a collection of cityscapes and a looping video that I won't even attempt to explain. The cityscapes were very interesting, I don't know enough arty words to describe them though - abstract is the word that springs to mind but it doesn't really do them justice. You'll just have to take my word for it that they were good.
Last stop on the tour was the Devonian gardens. These tropical gardens are part of Calgary's main shopping centre, situated on the top floor under a series of glass domes. As shopping centre gardens go they were pretty good, but overall they weren't anything more than a quick distraction. I can imagine in the middle of winter when it's 10 below outside and there's snow everywhere the gardens would be a welcome break from the cold though.
Oh, and while in the shopping centre we stumbled across (ok, sought out) a games shop so we popped in and picked up another DS game. This time Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
By the time we'd got the crowded C-Train and driven back to Ros's we were all quite tired so we had another quiet evening in and I practiced my attorney skills on the DS.
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