A few days ago, I wrote about my visit to the Butterfly Pavilion in the Botanical Garden, one of the coolest places I've visited while I've been in Montreal.
Today, I want to share a bit more of the things I did that day, including a walk around the Chinese Gardens and this magnificent place called Beaver Lake.
After visiting the Pavilion, I decided to walk around the actual Botanical Garden, which extends for about 75 acres and includes everything from a Greenhouse to an Insectarium & Planetarium, among other things. As one of Montreal's most popular tourist attractions, and judging by how peaceful Beaver Lake is, the Botanical Gardens did not disappoint.
Even though the winter in Montreal was still going strong at that time, there were a few people sitting around the lake, presumably enjoying the cold, cold air of the north.
After freezing my nose for a while there, I headed to the Chinese Gardens, celebrated because of the Chinese Lights Festival that takes place there sometime during the fall. Even though there were no lights at this time of year, or even any of the huge sculptures that were installed in the summer of 2012, I loved the gardens.
Possibly because it was so cold, there were very few people around and taking photos was super easy. The light was not optimal and the cold was definitely taking its toll on me, but the garden is so aesthetically pleasing, it is impossible to not want to spend more time there.
This was the first thing I saw once I entered the Garden:
From there, it's a super short walk to the main building of the Garden, which (depending on the angle from which you see it), looks like this:
Or like this:
Standing there it is possible to get an impressive view of the Sunset Pavilion.
It is said that during the fall, the sun sets just behind this small structure, giving the Garden the most impressive view of the sunset, hence the name.
Since the days were still pretty cold and the plants were quite dead when I first visited, I had been dying to go back to the Gardens and eventually persuaded some friends to go back (actually, scratch that. It was their idea to go to the Botanical Gardens, I just dragged them to the Chinese Garden and made them eat there).
The place was looking much more alive. There were flowers and the landscape was greener, but...just as I started taking photos, the rain started to fall in biblical quantities...so, this is what we ended up with.
Once we were kicked out of there (and the rain had almost stopped!), we decided to carry on with our picnic at the Emilie-Gamelin Park. Funny story: this park is conveniently located between Montreal's Gay Village and the University of Quebec in Montreal, which would ideally make it a cool spot to hang out in. However, not many people go there because (among other things) it is an excellent place in which to pick a fight, get robbed and buy drugs...just like we discovered that day.
In the time that we were there, we got to see two actual fist fights (one of which started right next to us) and some guy came up to our group and talked to us for about half an hour only to eventually walk away with our bottles of soda (¿?).
Apart from that though, we had a good time. There are several cafes in the park, and there's always music playing after sunset (really good music, like The Kooks ;) ). Also, the Warner Bro's building is located right in front, and they project images & short clips into it! Which is to say, even though some people are quite crazy, we had a good time. And we learned which places to avoid from now on.
This weekend I'm going to be visiting Ottawa, and I will be sharing that trip on the blog some time next week!
Thanks for reading!
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