Vancouver, Canada
On the third day of our May 2018 trip to British Columbia, Matt and I woke up with a stark realization: we’d been in Vancouver for two nights and had yet to explore the actual city! Eager to rectify this, we decided to start our morning with a bike ride along Vancouver’s Stanley Park Seawall.
Stanley Park is an enormous public park (think 1,001 acres!) bordering downtown Vancouver, surrounded by the waters of the Vancouver Harbor. Matt and I had our first encounter with Stanley Park when we drove into the city from Seattle, and we both marveled at the dense and lush forested area. I later learned that Stanley Park is home to almost half a million trees, some of which are hundreds of years old.
The thick stone wall encircling the perimeter of the park and protecting the land from sea erosion is the aptly-named Seawall, which is now a 19-mile bike-and-pedestrian pathway.
After breakfast, Matt and I rented a pair of bikes from Spokes Bicycle Rentals at the entrance to Stanley Park and spent the morning cycling the seawall. This route follows the sea, starting at Coal Harbor, winding along Sunset Beach, False Creek, under the Burrard Street Bridge, and ending at Kitsilano Beach park. It took us about two hours to do a leisurely lap through the park, taking time for photos and pit stops to enjoy the views.
Refreshed and also ravenous, Matt and I returned our bikes and hopped in the car for a trip to Granville Island, which is a peninsula close to downtown Vancouver, accessible by ferry, car, or bike. The Island is a former industrial manufacturing district, but is now famous for its public market, marina, indigenous art galleries, and shopping.
We were lucky to visit Granville Island on a Saturday, which I imagine is one of its busiest times. There had to be at least 100 vendors selling food: everything from seafood to Italian to ramen to cheesecake to steak to sushi to fondue. We were so overwhelmed by our choices that we circled the vendor booths for almost an hour contemplating our options.
We finally settled on a variety of treats: samosas, spring rolls, Greek wraps, red velvet cupcakes, and mint chocolate gelato. As we were enjoying our desserts, we watched some street performers who made fun of Matt, and then spent the rest of our afternoon wandering listlessly through boutiques and galleries.
After grabbing coffees to go, we then headed back to mainland Vancouver for a quick visit to Queen Elizabeth Park.
The park sits on top of a small mountain right in the middle of the city, and stretches 500 feet above sea level to offer beautiful views from its Floral Conservatory.
The rest of our afternoon was spent chasing remnants of the 2010 Winter Olympics and enjoying a final dinner on the harbor, watching sea planes take off and land as the sun sank down beneath the mountains.
The next morning, with just a little time before our flight back to Nashville, we made the quick trek to Capilano Park in North Vancouver (“North Van” to the locals) to visit something quintessentially Pacific Northwestern: a salmon hatchery.
The hatchery in Vancouver plays an important role in populating the streams nearby and keeping the salmon population high in the region.
After admiring the fish and enjoying a short hike around the Capilano River, we packed the car and headed south to Seattle.
Happily, we didn’t have to say au revoir to Canada right away—it took three hours for us to cross the border back into the United States, and we were lucky to arrive at our flight just minutes before it departed for Nashville.
