Vancouver
Cool at last. Since leaving Texas, our escape from the summer heat has taken a while to be realized. We flew to Los Angeles then north to Sacramento, then further north to Tumwater, Washington, at each stop visiting our kids and their families. (Jump to Facebook for a quick summary of those excursions.) All the family we visited are well, thank you. While the nights were cool, the days were overly warm—until we arrived in Vancouver. Now, a week and a half after setting out, perfect weather has greeted us.
For the next two weeks we are transiting Canada, starting in Vancouver and ending in Montreal. All this traveling will be by rail, the major jump being a four-day, four-night journey from Vancouver to Toronto. We thought this might be of some interest to those of you follow this blog, either out of curiosity or amusement.
But let’s start in Vancouver, a city we have visited, and enjoyed, several times in the past. Unlike our Alaska Air flight from Sacramento to Seattle, where we first waited an extra two hours in the terminal then three more hours on the airplane while two tires were replaced, our flight from Seattle to Vancouver was a thirty-minute puddle (or Puget Sound) jump, followed, of course, by a fifty minute Uber trip crawling from the airport to our hotel. Not as bad as the hour and a half creep from LAX to Glendale a week earlier, but still.
Our hotel is worth mentioning. It’s the St. Regis, one of the oldest in Vancouver, but hardly out of date. Every room is stripped and refurbished every winter! The rooms are not large but are well appointed and in perfect shape. Wish I could say that about me. It’s also well located, close to everything we intended to visit this trip.
We started our stay by enjoying one of the best meals we can recall, including while in France. Of course this was a French restaurant, the Allouette Bistro, the best rated (by TripAdvisor) in Vancouver. Better yet, we arrived in time (not an accident) to enjoy happy hour prices for both the food and wine. We were happy campers, consuming mussels, escargot, warm Brie, crème brûle and superior wine until sated.
The next day we went to the top of the Vancouver Lookout. We did this our last visit, then viewing nothing but the smoke and haze of forest fires. This time all was clear.
The splurge of the day, with an even higher view, was our seaplane ride around the area, about as touristy a thing to do as one can do. The rest of the day we ducked into interesting buildings, from the Marine Building to the Anglican Cathedral to a gelato shop. I doubt any of you are surprised by the latter. A fun day.
We had two more meals worth mentioning. Our hotel breakfast was a sit-down affair matching the quality of the rest of the hotel services. And our evening meal? Well, reality had to set it at some point. We opted for a Vietnamese dinner. We chose poorly, as they say. We should have been suspicious as to the lack of fellow patrons.
Tomorrow, after, we trust, another enjoyable hotel breakfast, we head to the train station. We’ll leave Vancouver a little lighter in our wallets but happy that we’d returned.