Canadian Rockies, Part 3

We took a ferry, a ninety minute ride, back to Vancouver where we stayed at another Fairmont, again right across from the harbor.  Vancouver is a vibrant, modern city and we wished we had more time to spend there.  We did take the "Hop On Hop Off Bus", which we often do in a new city to give us an overview.

This is a partial view of Canada Place with its iconic five white sails. It  was very close to our hotel and a great place to walk along.

We took a water taxi to Granville Island, home to the huge Public Market, arts and crafts galore, gift shops and many good restaurants.  We ate lunch at a great place that over looked the water. We only spent a couple of hours there, but you could easily spend all day.

This shop selling handmade silk clothing had incredible wares.  The woman was weaving on this loom and I was very tempted to buy a very pricey wrap, but I resisted. That's Maxine, one of my travel companions, in the background.  She is a knitter and she did buy some luscious silk yarn to make a scarf.

I love to look at totem poles and we did see a few and I was intrigued by this workshop visible from the walkway.

The Public Market was a gourmet's delight selling all sorts of fruits, vegetables, fish, and meat.  I wondered how they kept these cherries and tomatoes stacked up like that.  I didn't dare touch one, lest they fall apart.

We spent the evening walking around the city and ate at a charming little French Restaurant recommended to us by an equally charming gentleman we met on the street.

The next morning we got on the train. Our whole trip was organized by the Rocky Mountaineer company.  We had seats on the top observation level with the glass dome.  It afforded us fabulous views of the beautiful countryside.  (Many pictures below). We ate two gourmet meals a day on the train in a dining room with white linens and flowers and a choice of several entrees.  The food was delicious and artfully arranged.

A very unflattering picture of me and one of my traveling companions, Mickie, imbibing. The bar opened at 9:30 AM and you could have as much as you wanted of wine, beer, cordials, or whiskey all day long.  We were very moderate, but did have some. The attendants on the train were delightful, knowledgeable young women who gave commentary on what we were passing. The comfy seats did recline but as one of the attendants said that if you fell asleep it would be a very expensive nap.

1. We saw several freight trains on other tracks.  Obviously they use the train a lot for commercial transport.

Looking out the front window at the train going around a curve.  You can see that some have observation decks and some do not.  There were cars behind us, too.  I think it held 600 passengers.  We did not all stay at the same hotels.

We did not sleep 0n the train, but got off to stay at hotels.  We stopped at Kamloops the first night, not much of a town and after the second day we got off at Jasper.  More about that in my next post.  Maybe tomorrow.