I do like Vancouver. I think it’s a beautiful city, with a near-perfect mix of downtown attractions set against a spectacular mountain backdrop. Perhaps one of the reasons I like it because whenever we visit, the weather is usually good. (That’s not the norm, actually, as the long term climate isn’t that dissimilar to Dublin’s). Today did, however, follow the trend with beautiful warm sunshine all day. Apparently it’s rained here non-stop for the last 2 months so as well as being extremely fortunate today, everywhere was looking vivid green and bursting with life, nourished by the earlier rain and ignited by the current sunshine.

Anyway, we woke up this morning at about 5am, just as it was getting light. Considering that our bodies thought it was 1pm, it was actually a pretty good night’s sleep.  After statutory cups of tea, we walked the short distance to Rob’s flat just in time to catch him going off to work. The rest of us – me, Val, James and Katie, walked a block west to catch the 19 bus, which arrived after a couple of minutes and whisked us to Stanley Park. (Payment is by contactless debit card so is very simple – why can’t Dublin buses do this too?).

We got off at Denman St and walked down to Unni pastries for a coffee and croissant breakfast. Once carbed-up, we walked down to the seawall and completed an anticlockwise circuit of the Stanley Park perimeter. One of my favourite coastal walks in the world!

By the time we reached the ferry terminal it was about 1pm and we were getting hungry. So we jumped on one of the dinky micro-ferries and sailed over to Granville Island where we headed straight over to the Tap & Barrel pub.

There was no wait for a table and were soon seated at a shady spot outside where we had tasty salmon salads (among other things) and beer for lunch. I chose a Radler beer which sounded nice on the menu but which actually was a bit like drinking pure lemon juice.  Certainly a different experience.

After lunch, we had a look round Granville Market – all sorts of expensive up market curiosities, both edible and non-edible, were on offer and it’s all rather nice. I treated myself to one of Lee’s tasty raspberry donuts which I convinced myself was healthy on account of its high jam content (jam after all is just a form of fruit).

After wandering for an hour or so, eating and listening to the busking musicians – the Venezuelan singer and guitarist was particularly good – we went over to the ferry terminal again. A quick cruise across the False Creek took us to the bottom of Hornby street from where we walked a couple of km north (there’s a surprising amount of uphill in Vancouver!). We met Rob at Burrard and West Pender then ambled up to the Convention Centre in Canada Place for a quick look round.

Once we were finished there, we strolled along to the Jinya Ramen bar, in Downtown Vancouver, for dinner. By the time we’d eaten, it had started to rain and I for one was starting to flag.  So we caught a Skytrain (Vancouver’s Underground rail system) from the nearby station and then made our way back to the AirBnB without further ado, then called it a day and retired to bed.

Once again, Canada put her best foot forward for us, and I loved it.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)