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The Calgary Tower (daily: mid-May to mid-Sept 8am-midnight; mid-Sept to mid-May 8am-11pm; $6.15), the city's favourite folly, is a good deal shorter and less imposing than the tourist material would have you believe. An obligatory tourist traipse, the 190-metre-tall salt cellar (762 steps if you don't take the lift) stands in a relatively dingy area at the corner of Centre Street-9th Avenue SW, somewhat overshadowed by downtown's more recent buildings. As a long-term landmark, however, it makes a good starting point for any tour of the city, the Observation Terrace offering outstanding views, especially on clear days, when the snowcapped Rockies fill the western horizon, with the ski-jump towers of the 1988 Canada Olympic Park in the middle distance. Up on the observation platform after your one-minute elevator ride you'll find a snack bar (good value and excellent food), cocktail bar and revolving restaurant (expensive). Any number of shopping malls lurk behind the soaring high-rises, most notably Toronto Dominion Square (8th Ave SW between 2nd and 3rd streets), the city's main shopping focus and the unlikely site of Devonian Gardens (daily 9am-9pm; free; tel 268-3888). Like something out of an idyllic urban Utopia, the three-acre indoor gardens support a lush sanctuary of streams, waterfalls and full-sized trees, no mean feat given that it's located on the fourth floor of a glass-and-concrete glitter palace (access by elevator). Around 20,000 plants round off the picture, comprising some 138 local and tropical species. Benches beside the garden's paths are perfect for picnicking on food bought in the takeaways below, while impromptu concerts are held on the small stages dotted around. Calgary pays homage to its oil industry in the small but oddly interesting Energeum plonked in the main lobby of the Energy Resources Building between 5th Street and 6th Street SW at 640-5th Ave SW (June-Aug Mon-Fri & Sun 10.30am-4.30pm; Sept-May Mon-Fri same hours; free; tel 297-4293). Its audiovisual and presentational tricks take you through the formation, discovery and drilling for coal and oil. Alberta's peculiar and problematic oil sands are explained - granite-hard in winter, mud-soft in summer - and there are dollops of the stuff on hand for some infantile slopping around. The Calgary Science Centre is located one block west of the 10th Street SW C-Train at 701 11th Street and 7th Avenue SW (mid-May to June Tues-Thurs 10am-4pm, Fri-Sun 10am-5pm; call for winter hours; $9 for all exhibits and one Discovery Dome show; tel 221-3700, www.calgaryscience.ca ). Here you can look through the telescopes of its small observatory, which are trained nightly on the moon, planets and stars (weather permitting). Other daytime highlights here include the interactive exhibits of the Discovery Hall (these change regularly) and the Discovery Dome , a multimedia theatre complete with cinema picture images, computer graphics, slide-projected images and a vast speaker system. The on-site Pleiades Theatre offers a series of "mystery and murder plays" throughout the year. For details of current shows and exhibitions, call 221-3700. To get here, either walk the five blocks west from 6th Street if you're near the Energeum, or take the C-Train along 7th Avenue SW and walk the last block.
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