We arrived in Vancouver late at night, dishevelled and fed up after a over 24 hours of travelling. When we left the hotel bright and early the next morning, it was like a new dawn. We had a brunch of Eggs Benedict, and then wandered into the centre of Vancouver.
The centre of Vancouver hinges on Granville Street and Robson Street which both had a mixture of chain shops, independent shops, and department stores. We enjoyed watching a street performer Jackie Chan Chan, who was pretty funny and chose my BF to join in with his act as the “strong man”.
Our fave part of Vancouver was Canada Place and the footpath south along the waterfront. This is where the Sea Planes take off and land, and where the Cruise ships dock. We loved lazily watching the sea planes taxiing out to take off, and watching the men load up the cruise ship by hanging crates over the ocean into the loading door.
Over the next few days we explored. We hired electric bikes and cycled round Stanley Park. We saw the brightly coloured collection of totem poles and continued cycling around the park, past the big suspension bridge, and saw a seal hiding in the sea!
There were some lovely beaches and we stopped for a hot-dog on a bench overlooking the sea.
Vancouver is such a green city, and we were pleased to see cycle paths everywhere. There was even a separate roller-blading lane, alongside the cycle lane, alongside the footpath in some places! The only downside was that cycling was so popular that the bike lanes were like mini motorways – so busy! We often got stuck behind slower cyclists and had to try and overtake. I mean, it was OK, but we wished we could go at our pace unimpeded by bike-traffic. Stanley Park was (rightfully) marked as a one-way system, which helped
In case you’re wondering what it’s like to ride an electric bike, it’s the same as a normal bike,. except when you start to pedal you feel like you are turbo charged, or you have a rocket up your bottom. It’s an extra boost. I don’t think they are necessary, but my BF wanted to try them and they were the same price as normal bikes, so we did!
We cycled round to Denman Street in the West End where we enjoyed the laughing statues. We stopped for a snack of sushi on the street which boasted all types of restaurants.
We also explored Granville Island – this is quite quaint with lots of crafty arty independent shops, a few restaurants, and the well-known public market, selling all kinds of fresh foods. There are both ready-to-eat dishes, and fresh raw ingredients. This is a nice place to while away an hour or so, or grab a tasty meal.
In terms of other Food in Vancouver, we tried grilled cheese sandwiches from one of the Food Trucks which was brilliant. We also had the legednary Japadog which is a blend between Hot Dogs and Japanese food. Quite frankly the thought of that made me feel quite sick, but amazingly it worked really well!
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