Ireland day 0960. Wednesday 15 May 2024- Vancouver 1

Today’s summary	After an early (jet lag) breakfast, headed into Vancouver for a day of exploration on foot from our guesthouse. Took in Gastown (complete with gas powered clock), Canada Place, Stanley Park and Granville Island for beers. A lovely walk on a stunning warm sunny day when the city was looking its best. Rounded off by dinner with the family in the evening
Today’s weather	Warm dry and sunny. Appx 20c. Very little wind

Today’s overview location (The green mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The orange line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Vancouver explorer

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

After the stresses and strains of yesterday’s journey, I think we could have been forgiven a day off today. But we aren’t here in Vancouver for long, so we wasted no time in getting up early (jet-lag caused by the eight hour time difference certainly helped here), having a massive breakfast, then girding our loins and setting off in to town.

Vancouver is a beautiful city – surely one of the world’s most stunning – with modern skyscrapers, cafés and bars downtown, tree and snow clad mountains to the north, and a fabulous Pacific Bay filled with tree-clothed islands around which the city is built. We have been a few times before – most recently two years ago – but there are still plenty of things that we wanted to see.

First on the list was the gas-powered clock, which unsurprisingly is situated in Gastown. It was installed as recently as 1977 to celebrate the transformation of Gastown from “Skid Row” to a trendy boutiquey area with lots of fascinating shops and studios to check out.

From there we headed over the railway line and onto the waterfront, which eventually led us to the Canada Place convention centre. We saw some of Vancouver’s “transitional” areas on the way – it was helpful to see the other side of this otherwise perfect city.

By the time we got to the ship-themed convention centre at Canada Place it was time for refreshments – we found an ideally situated café on one of the higher levels to watch the float planes coming in to land in the bay, and to have a good look at the preparations being made for the departure of the huge cruise ship which was moored alongside.

Once we had gathered our strength, we set off again in the direction of Stanley Park, where we paused briefly to have a look at the rose garden. A short hop across the peninsula saw us pitching up at the ferry terminal just in time to catch one of the charmingly tiny micro ferries which runs over from the Aquatics Centre to Granville Island.

By now, after a day in the sun, we were thirsty so we plopped ourselves into the nearest bar, and enjoyed a couple of ice-cold beers with suitably hipster guacamole and tortilla dips to go with them. Captured the Vancouver vibe perfectly.

We paused in the pub for a good hour – though it felt like five minutes – then hauled ourselves back onto our feet and finished off the last few km of our pedestrian journey back to the guest house. A fabulous day out and in a few moments we are going to round it off by going out for dinner with the family. What’s not to like?!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Gas powered clock. It plays the “Big Ben” jingle every 15 minutes – which must drive the neighbours mad	Vancouver skyline with attractive foreground!

The Canada Place convention centre, complete with giant cruise ship	You could almost be in the Caribbean! Palm trees leading to the beach at English Bay

One of the many rather dinky false-creek ferries which take you over to Granville Island	Down on Granville Island. You could spend all day there, soaking in the “vibe”

Much needed refreshments in the bar on Granville Island