I really enjoyed this road trip to Canada that I took with my sister and her husband. It started in Vancouver and ended in Calgary. We didn’t pick up the car until we had finished the Vancouver part of the trip, so we arrived at Vancouver airport and took a train from there to our hotel in the centre of Vancouver. This was so convenient, as the station is literally just across the road from the airport, and getting tickets was straightforward – I was in fact lucky enough to get a free journey, as a kind lady offered me her part used ticket!
Our first evening in Vancouver involved going out for a bite to eat and then walking along by the harbour. The harbour is lovely, and you can walk all the way round via a good promenade. The views of the city skyscrapers loom up above you and there are some fantastic yachts moored up – I couldn’t begin to imagine how much some of them were worth! I also spotted a couple of large cruise ships that had recently arrived in the harbour and were sitting patiently at sea You can get close to the seaplanes, too, and watch them taking off and landing. You can choose from a variety of excursions by sea plane, including trips to whistler, but many of them go back and forth between Vancouver Harbour and Vancouver Island – much quicker and more civilised than using the ferry.
There are plenty of great places to eat and drink in Vancouver, along with plenty of little gift shops that sell maple syrup and maple biscuits in abundance – I simply had to try these, and I ended up taking some home as presents. I became quite addicted to maple cookies while I was in Canada, and now I miss the fact that I can’t just pop to the supermarket in the UK and buy some!
