Day 28 (4/28)
Vancouver!
Downtown Vancouver and Stanley Park are on a peninsula formed by a fjord called Indian Arm that extends many miles inland and False Creek, an estuary that encircles its southern end. The rest of Vancouver is neighborhoods and probably 10 times the size of the downtown. Our hotel was pretty centrally located in the downtown area, though closer to the north waterfront. At 9 o’clock our parking space became a traffic lane, so just before then we pulled out for the parking lot on Cambie St. Anxious to get started on our walk, we paid for 24 hours of parking (about $20, US) and headed to the nearest Starbucks for a little breakfast and some coffee.
Connie and I love waterfronts and the paved seawall walk/bike path encircled both the city and Stanley Park. Today we just walked around the city. We passed a cruise ship terminal, marinas, a seaplane tour dock where we watched a couple of planes takeoff, water side cafés, little plazas and parks and more. To the waterside was the vast Vancouver Harbor, which the eastern tip of Stanley Park eventually reduced to a smaller inner harbor (or as the Canadians say, harbour).
The path then crosses the lower part of Stanley park before coming to English Bay on the west side. There are beaches along this part and, in the distance, we could see two great bridges over False Creek. The farther one led to our destination, Granville Island. I was getting pretty tired by then and not looking forward to the climb up to and the walk along the traffic bridge when we discovered that there is a small ferry service to the island and points along the (medium large river size) “creek”. On Granville Island there is a large public market that we explored, but otherwise I was a little disappointed in the area. We had some lunch where we had a view of the creek and the underside of the bridge and, afterward, picked up coffee and sat outside the market drinking it. The large open space outside the market was filled with people enjoying the sunshine and listening to live music. While we were sitting there, an orchestra whose members seemed to be in middle school began setting up and Connie wanted to wait until they began playing, but as far as we know they may still be setting up, so we left.
We took the ferry farther up the slough to a place called Yaletown. This is one of the unique neighborhoods highlighted on the map. It is newer and known for its innovative architecture. In fact Vancouver can take pride in the architecture of its downtown area. To the landward side of our walk we saw many interesting modern buildings and it was evident that even in building the many high-rise apartment buildings, efforts were made to make them interesting. One of our favorites was about 20 stories high with a wide, flat disc extending from the penthouse with a 30+ foot tree growing from the center of it. There was also on the shore of Yaletown a very interesting building with a three-story penthouse that is supposed to belong to a prince from Dubai and is said to have cost him 27 million. Pocket change.
By the time we got to Yaletown, we were pretty tired. Fortunately, we were not too far from our hotel. Going out to find somewhere to eat was beyond us – we’d walked 9 miles that day – so we grabbed a bite at the hotel grill and retired to our room.