The drive from Banff to Kamloops was almost exhaustingly breathtaking. The winding road slowly descends through the Rockies, with each turn offering a new verdant vista that just doesn’t fit into a photograph. The beauty was magnified by a mysterious haze hovering over the trees, which we thought could have been smoke from recent wildfires.
Kamloops is a fairly typical North American railway town with a few historical buildings but seems mostly to be geared towards travellers heading west towards Vancouver. It has a nice waterfront park for morning/evening strolls, a couple of decent cafés and restaurants and a small farmer’s market on Saturdays. We stayed at the Plaza Heritage Hotel (450 Victoria St, breakfast included). We had good toasted sandwiches at PDK Café (438 Victoria St), and a nice (massive) Chinese meal at Oriental Gardens (545 Victoria St), which does Japanese too.
Next up was Vancouver, where we spent just over a week. We decided to split our time between two different Airbnbs in different neighbourhoods, the first in Mount Pleasant, which has great cafés and shops, and the second in Kensington-Cedar Cottage, more on the residential side of things. Our friends Riley and Steve, whose wedding we attended in August, were coming out to visit us and as it was Steve’s first time in Vancouver we had a bunch of things to tick off our list.
We spent one morning at the famous Capilano Suspension Bridge park (3735 Capilano Ave; adults $42.95, students $33.95) in North Vancouver, where you can walk over a gorge across a wobbly rope bridge or up in the trees. It was certainly fun but probably a little overpriced and slightly crammed with tourists. After the bridge, we had lunch at Lonsdale Quay Market (123 Carrie Cates Court). I had some amazing freshly fried chicken and P had a great falafel wrap.
We spent one morning at the famous Capilano Suspension Bridge park (3735 Capilano Ave; adults $42.95, students $33.95) in North Vancouver, where you can walk over a gorge across a wobbly rope bridge or up in the trees. It was certainly fun but probably a little overpriced and slightly crammed with tourists. After the bridge, we had lunch at Lonsdale Quay Market (123 Carrie Cates Court). I had some amazing freshly fried chicken and P had a great falafel wrap.
That afternoon, we headed over to Vancouver Aquarium (845 Avison Way; adults $39, students $30), which is nestled in the picturesque Stanley Park. The aquarium building is new and well-maintained, and the highlights for us were the sea otters and the seals. They are building a new Arctic exhibit which looks to be promising, so perhaps we’ll have to make a return visit.
A must-see stop when in Vancouver is Granville Island Public Market (1669 Johnston St), which is centred around a few walkable streets nestled beneath the Granville Bridge (Vancouver was originally named “Granville” by British settlers). There’s great fresh fruit and vegetables, pastries and meats as well as hot food and craft stalls. You can easily spend a few hours wandering around the alleys there and end up with a significantly slimmer wallet.
On our last full day in Vancouver, we headed for Main St in the Mount Pleasant area to check out some shops we hadn’t had the chance to see when we were staying in the area. We stopped at Antisocial Skateboard Shop (2337 Main St), I bought a nice flannel shirt the very reasonably-priced F as in Frank Vintage (2425 Main St), we picked up some cute home bits at Much & Little (2541 Main St) and browsed the pop-up Sitka Surfboard (2549 Main St). We also had a quick and cheap bite to eat at Lucy’s Eastside Diner (2708 Main St).
Getting around the city was a doddle with the Skytrain, we recommend getting a Compass card (works like an Oyster card; deposit $6) that you can just top up and use as you go. If you have anything left over you can get it refunded along with your deposit before you leave town at the Translink customer service centre.
We managed to pack a lot into our eight days in British Columbia’s biggest city, and we would visit again in a heartbeat. We did so much more than I can detail here—for example we drove up to Whistler ski resort for the day, and spent an evening wandering around Stanley Park— I feel like we didn’t even see 10% of what the city has to offer. It’s also incredibly chilled out, the west coast vibe is present everywhere you go.
Vancouver was our last stop in Canada before heading over the border to the States. We won’t see Canada again until we head back to Toronto for our flight home in November. It felt weird to leave the country we’d learnt to love over the last two months, but onwards and upwards…
To be continued…