Wow, that's a lot of walking in a lot of cold-- well done; I'm sincerely impressed. I used to walk 6-8 hours when I was a "professional" beach comber (long story) and would easily cover 20-25km in a day. Still, when you aren't used to it, it's amazing how just walking can take it out of you.

Cool that they've repurposed the old buildings, rather than just knocking them down.

As for public art... well, I'm reminded of an old truism: "There's no accounting for taste." We have some horrific art lumps around our town, too. At least the staircases to nowhere are mildly interesting.