Down By The Water.

After hopping off at Charlevoix Metro, we spent the afternoon along the Canal de Lachine and in the Old Port of Montreal. The Canal reminded me in parts of the canal I lived near in Hoxton, except this one was just full of redundant factories and dead industry. Every so often, however, a sight would surprise you and provide a huge contrast to the abandoned buildings.

Out of nowhere came this delightful sight:

But the view of the Downtown skyscrapers with apocolyptic clouds rolling in was cool too:

As we reached the endpoint of our walk at the Old Port, we could see some of Montreal's most famous architecture, Habitat '67. Designed by Canadian-Israeli architect Moshe Safdie, Habitat '67 was originally conceived as a sort of exercise in egalitarian housing, but now just serves as a nest for the artistic elite of Montreal. It's super, super cool and I'd been excited to see it since I got here. I tried to get a good picture that shows the way the cubes sit together, but ended up with this:

which kinda sucks and makes it look really lame, so here's a link to a photo that actually does this amazing building justice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Habitat_panorama.jpg

While the views from the Lachine Canal might not strike as particularly 'beautiful' and Habitat '67 isn't the 'prettiest' of buildings, I think there's a lot of merit in the diversity of the architecture in Montreal.
xx