Canada
Canada has the seventh largest economy in the world. Most of the businesses are privately owned, although the government does play a major role in the health care system and operates many services including transportation and utility companies. Population is 37 million, Capital is Ottawa, Language mostly spoken is English and French. We had 3 months to travel through Canada.
Flag of Canada
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city in Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. population of Vancouver is 610, 000. The Greater Vancouver area has a population of more than 2.4 million
Vancouver Flag
Vancouver differs from other major cities because of its diversity. In one day you can hike Stanley Park in the morning and then shop Downtown among the masses in the afternoon. Foodies can buy produce at Granville Island and enjoy fine dining in Yaletown the next. You can walk historic Gastown before slurping noodles in Chinatown. It is also very nice to walk through the waterfront area, there are sea planes, boats and it is beautiful to look back at the city from here.
Stanley Park is a massive public space with paved paths for bicyclists, roller bladers, and walkers. Here you can enjoy the trees, totem poles, and the waters of the Vancouver Harbour
Near Canada Place is the oldest neighbourhood in the city, the historic Gastown. You can visit Gastown and see the Steam Clock and a chance to shop for souvenirs. Next to Gastown is Canada’s largest Chinatown. Vancouver’s Chinatown traces its history back to 1885
Further west, across the waters of False Creek, is Granville Island. Here at the Granville Island Public Market are vendors galore. You can buy fresh produce, straight out of the oven breads and pastries, and a huge variety of fruit and vegetables plus other food products.
We were lucky with the day we went to Capilano suspension Bridge Park as it was dry and sunny. The Capilano Suspension Bridge is a simple suspension bridge crossing the Capilano River in the District of North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The current bridge is 140 metres long and 70 metres above the river. There is an impressive cliff walk you can take and you can stroll the rainforest canopy on a Treetops Adventure and walk through a number of Totem poles. It is a lovely day out.
While in Vancouver I ticked another item off my bucket list, I went to see an ice hockey game, wow what an exciting and exhilarating game, if I was younger I would definitely take up this sport. We went to see the Vancouver Canucks play against the Buffalo Sabres in the Rogers Arena. The Vancouver Canucks are a professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Canucks play their home games at Rogers Arena, the Buffalo Sabres are based in New York. Unfortunately, the Sabres won the game. We really enjoyed our first hockey game, lets hope this is the first of many
We stayed in a wonderful Airbnb that I would recommend to everyone. It is run by Mike and Juanita it is on Templeton Drive, Garden level Vancouver. Great couple and very nice accommodation, close to everything.
We really enjoyed Vancouver but we were surprised to see so many homeless people. We were told that because Vancouver is the warmest State in Canada that this is were most of the homeless will congregate too. Such a shame and very sad.
Whistler/Pemberton
We decided to spend a month skiing in Whistler, we have not been skiing for a few years and when we have skied in the past it has always been a bit rushed, we would book a week skiing and feel like we had to ski every day to get ours monies worth, whether our legs ached or not. So we decided if we went to Whistler for a month we could at least have every second day off if needed. Whistler is a very expensive area to stay for a month so we stayed in a beautiful town called Pemberton which is about a 35min drive to Whistler.
The skiing is as good as they say in Whistler, with the Peak to Creek 11km long, making me feel my age and a bit more each time I skied down it. The runs are a lot longer than I had experienced in New Zealand, Australia or Andorra. The village is very nice, but the locals say, since Vail took over the resort it has less of a community feel.
I fell in love with Pemberton the small town we stayed in, it is surrounded by mountains and is breath taking. For the first time I can see the attraction of living in a small town, from the wonderful coffee shop that sits in the old train station, to Hazel the oldest lady in Pemberton, 102 this year and looks fantastic, to the kids waving hello each morning as they head to school and we head to the slopes, to the very friendly neighbours and the for the smell of pot on the bus each evening as we travelled back from a day of skiing in Whistler.
The street we stayed on in Pemberton and the view from the window that I had my office.
A beautiful house at the end of the street
Hazel 102 years old this year, amazing lady, in our favourite coffee shop Blackbird Bakery
The street at night time
Besides skiing we could not visit whistler without going to the Whistler Sliding Centre which hosted the bobsledding, luge, and skeleton competitions for the 2010 Winter Olympics. It is the fastest ice track in the world and we experience the action first-hand with me bobsledding and Martin doing the skeleton ride down 1,450-meter-long ice track. It was a huge adrenalin rush, and not something I will forget.
The day after we had a relaxing day at the Scandinavie Spa which is in peaceful and natural environment within the Laurentian forest.
Norma Bobsledding
Martin Skeleton, faster than the speed of light
Scandinavie Spa
The sun shone in the afternoon, just beautiful and relaxing
A wonderful month of Skiing and relaxing in Whistler.
Banff
The scenery is the best we have seen in Banff the Rocky Mountains Canada. Snow-cap mountains, frozen lakes waterfalls and beautiful clear blue skies, sun rise and sunset over the mountains make it a true photographers dream. We did some hiking while here, but some of the trails were closed for safety reasons, too much snow and possible chances of an avalanche. We hope to return one day in early spring or late summer to complete these hikes as I am sure it will look completely different without the snow. We did manage to hike to Johnston Canyon, Fairmont Banff Springs, Mash loop, Spray River East Trail and the Sundance trail.
Beautiful scenery in Banff
Different Hikes in Banff
Frozen waterfalls at Johnston Canyon
View from the Fairmont restaurant Lake Louise
Frozen Lake Louise
We could not leave the snow without trying Dog sledding. I am not a real dog person but if I was to buy a dog, a husky would be it. Besides being beautiful looking dogs, they are also very good natured. The dog sledding was lots of fun, but in some ways I felt bad for the dogs pulling us around on the slay. But the owners assured us that the dogs are working dogs, and this is what they do. They did seem to be very happy dogs and seem to be great with people.
Banff truly is a beautiful place and next time we come here it will be for longer than a week. We will definitely remember Banff for its beauty.
Toronto
I was expecting more of a wow factor from Toronto. I had been here over 15 years ago on a conference and although I did not get to see much then I remembered it differently. One thing that remained the same was the cold weather. I thought by mid-march the weather would have warmed up but it was -4 degrees most days with a very cold wind, but at least the sky was clear and blue. The CN Tower in Toronto is impressive it showed us just how flat Toronto is, because of this i would have expected more bikes on the road. Maybe it was just to cold to cycle.
We spent one of out afternoons visiting Casa Loma it is a Gothic Revival style home, very beautiful, it was more like a small castle, with beautiful stables and definitely worth a visit.
One thing for sure Toronto knows how to celebrate St Pats Day and I thank them for that. We had a great St Pats day in the Irish Embassy Bar in the Centre of the City. They played the 6 Nations match at 10.45am between Ireland and England, not only did Ireland want to beat England as they always do but if they win this match they would win the Grand Slam. The excitement in the Bar was fantastic and I am sure the cheers could be heard back in Ireland when they won. The day continued with 4 different bands playing great music lots of drinking, dancing and good crack. Not a day I will forget easily.
Niagara Falls are beautiful and very accessible, I am sure this is why Niagara Falls get more visitors every year than the likes of the Iguazu falls, which are more expansive and impressive. We saw the falls from both sides the Canadian and American side, I think they are more impressive from the Canadian side. The hotel we stayed in had great views of the falls, it is called “The Tower at falls view”. The town of Niagara is like a poor cousin of Vegas a bit tacky with lots of fast food restaurants, mind you it is not cheap.
The area is saved by the fact that a thirty-minute drive from the falls there is a town Niagara on the lake which is a beautiful and surrounded by wineries. Good restaurants and coffee shops. We visited a few of the wineries and my favourite was the Two Sister Winery, the wines are very different than the ones I am used to in Australia but still not bad at all.
Ottawa the Capital of Canada. I was not sure what to expect as I had not heard much about Ottawa. It was slightly warm than Toronto so that’s a plus. We stayed in a great Airbnb in walking distance to the city Centre. Capital Hill has some beautiful old government buildings, there is a great view from the hill over the city area and across the river. The byway markets are good for a browse, What I have noticed about several of the markets in different countries is that all the stalls are selling the same stuff so there is very little variety, personally if it was me I would look to sell something unique that would target the audience.
Capital Hill
Views from Capital Hill
My favourite thing to do in Ottawa was to cycle along the canals, the Airbnb we stayed at had bicycles we could borrow and although it was cold it was sunny and dry. Most of the Canals were still frozen over, in the depths of winter the Rideau canals become the world’s largest Skating rink.. The first day we went out for a short bike ride we got lost, 3 hours later we got home. I was stuffed as it had been a long time since I had been on a bike, actually the last time I was on a bike was a mountain bike, going down death road in Bolivia. Cycling along the canals although not as exciting as death road, was a lot safer and more relaxing. I am sure I could live in Ottawa in spring and or early summer but not winter.
Cycling around the canals, waterfalls and bridges of Ottawa great fun.
Quebec : Our train journey from Ottawa was very relaxing but I was not to happy to see that the snow was still quite thick on the ground, just when I thought I was done with the snow. Our week in Quebec included a few days being house bound because of the snow and very cold weather, the only thing we ventured out for was coffee. We stayed in the old walled city which is quite beautiful, it reminds me of a French village and of course everyone speaks French here. They say the best way to get a good photo of the city is to take a short ferry ride across to Levis, on the way across you get a great view of the city. We did manage to do this one of the warmer days. Ottawa has some beautiful old buildings and several lovely churches. In particular the Basilique Cathedrale Notre-Dame. The inside of this church is very ostentation with lots of gold. Whenever I see this I wonder if our lord was on earth today what would he think of this, as a child I was brought up a catholic being from the south of Ireland this was the norm, and one thing that has always annoyed me or conflicted with me was the wealth the Catholic church seems to have, it is not only in Rome that is very obvious that the Catholic Church have a lot of wealth but most countries we have visited the catholic church has huge amounts of land and usually in the best areas. Is this right when there are starving children in the world. From the stories I read in the bible the church was not about wealth it was about looking after each other and sharing what we had. I believe God would be disappointed in this. I do not have pictures of the inside of this church I do not take photos inside churches, Mosques or any place of worship my personal view is that it is disrespectful. Anyway, rant over back to Quebec. There are some very good artists in Quebec and it was lovely to visit their studios and admire their wonderful art works, in particular I liked Galerie Zen and Le Chien D’Or both artist where very happy to explain their art work to us. I am not sure how life continues as normal in places like Quebec when it is so cold and snows for 6 months of the year, on the 9th of April there was still a lot of snow around and it was -9 degrees.
View of Quebec City from the Ferry to Levis
Still lots of snow
The Old walled city of Quebec
Montreal was warmer than Ottawa but only just. In Montreal there seems to be a good mix of English and French spoken. The old port and town of Montreal is beautiful with great restaurants and bars, it is also full of amazing artwork. If you are looking for a new piece of Artwork this is the area to go.
If you go to Mount Royal you will get a great view of the city, it is a large volcanic hill or small mountain west of Downtown.
The botanical gardens although not as impressive this time of year the glass houses and butterfly enclosure were some of the best we have visited. The gardens I am sure would be outstanding in summer. While here you can also pay a visit to the 1976 Olympic Stadium which is just across the street from the Botanical Gardens.
We went to the 2Cellos concert in the Bell Tower, these guys are fantastic a wonderful performance, very entertaining.
This concludes our three months of travelling through Canada, and wow did we had an amazing time, Canada really is a beautiful country, the people, food, stunning scenery and fresh air will really take your breath away, the only negative thing I can say about Canada is the cold 6 months of winter they seem to get, otherwise I would have no problem living here. If I visit again I will be sure to visit mid may to mid September.