Day trip - The Glacier Trail

I really wanted to see more than Banff in the Rockies. My very first plan was going to Lake Louise and then to Jasper by bus and catch a train to Winnipeg there. Finally, I changed my mind to save some money and some time. So the best option to discover the Rockies was booking a tour with a tour company!

I received an other good advice which was using Discover Banff Tour. I have to admit that there are so many companies here which offer the same kind of tour in the same range of price that I was a bit hesitating. And now that it's done, I have no regret. We had a friendly and knowledgeable guide, with a charming smile, a small bus, a small group composed of 12 people and a weather which was not bad.
We'd chosen a tour called "The Glacier Trail", a full-day tour driving from Banff to Jasper National Park on the Columbia Icefields. Fortunately, we took some warm clothes because on the glacier it was a bit cold.
We saw so many breathtaking landscapes that I couldn't even say the name of the different places we've been.

 

We started the day by a short stop in Lake Louise, about 30min, just enough time to walk on the frozen lake and have a look at the Chateau Lake Louise. Such a nice place but I wish I could see it in summer, when the ice is melted, to see the blue/green water reflecting the Mount Victoria.

Then we just kept on driving on the most scenic highway in the world, stopping in some places to take some pictures, before arriving at the Columbia Icefields Centre where we ate our lunch, waiting to go to our Ice Explorer tour on the Athabasca Glacier. The trucks are amazing, apparently unique and expensive, but I'm not sure that this kind of tour will help fighting against the melting of the glacier.... Anyway, we had to deal with a snow storm and we couldn't see anything but it was great. It seemed very cold because of the wind but it was just -8°C.

After this short but unforgettable experience we just went back to the bus to go back to Banff.

It was such a good day! I do love this area. Nature, snow, mountains... what else?

First days in Banff

It's been something like 2 days and a half since I arrived in Banff and all I have to say is that I love it!
It's very small and there's not many things to see if you only stay in the town but the landscape is just incredible!

It would be a lie to say that I've never seen that kind of landscape before but, honestly, it's not the same.
I love the way the town is surrounded by mountains with the river going through it. And the best is that there's still some snow. I mean, not a lot but it gives me an idea of how it is in the winter.

The last two days were kinda quiet, just wandered around and explored the town. I met Nana, a friend of Vancouver who is trying to settle here for a few months and we wandered around together.

Today we walked on the Tunnel Mountain trail. It was not so hard but a bit steep sometimes and the melting snow on the trail didn't make it easier. We slipped a few times and almost got lost at the top but finally we did it and we enjoyed the breathtaking view on Banff.

The way back to the town was much easier, we could just slip on the snow, it's faster! The only bad thing is that it's not the best season to enjoy all the activities you can find here. It's too late for winter one's because the snow is melting and it's too early for summer one's because of the snow...

Anyway I'll try to enjoy my time here as much as I can because then I'll visit some cities for while.

Drumheller - Badlands

There's a nice place in Alberta that Dave has recommended to me and I'm glad I followed his advice!
Drumheller is at 2 hours by car from Calgary and I rented a car to go there with Vera, my roommate in Calgary. What a pleasure to drive after more than 3 months without a car!
For those who have never heard of it before, you have to know that Drumheller is the 1st place in the world to find dinosaur's skeletons - at least, that's what I've heard...

First stop was at the information centre where you can see a giant dino. You can even go to the top of it, in his mouth, for 3$. But well, that's for kids!

Then we went to the Royal Tyrrell Museum, a museum full of skeletons, scientific explanations, geological history and many other things. It's huge and very well organized and for 11$, it is worth it. Honestly, I was there only to look not to read, and the little I've read reminded me my Science lessons in high school...
Anyway it was more than interesting.

Lunch and walk in the little town of Drumheller, which is very different from all the places I've seen before in Canada. It looks like a real stereotype of an American town...

After that, we went to the Hoodoos and we stop at a kind of suspension bridge, near an old mine. The Hoodoos are nice, but not as big as I thought...

Already time to go back to Calgary by a road... well... actually you can't call this a road! It looks more like a mined path, full of dust, holes and rocks.

This was a very good day and thanks so much to Vera who accepted to come with me and share the rental.

By the way, I've found something interesting in Calgary... country pub!!! Went to Ranchman's with 2 German girls and our Swiss driver. Country music, beers, cowboys & cowgirls and country dance of course ! Yeeeeeeeha! Seems like a big part of the culture in Calgary... Stampede must be amazing!

Calgary or the "Sandstone City"

It's been two days now since I arrived in Calgary and honestly... it's not very exciting!

The first day was a lazy day... I just slept and then I decided to go to the city centre and walk to see how it was. Well... I didn't find anything really interesting except maybe the aerial pathways between almost all of the buildings. I discovered, after, that it's to fight the snow and the cold in winter, you can go almost everywhere in the city centre without having to put one foot outside. This is amazing... and terribly useful!

Then, the architecture, nature and urban landscapes in Calgary are not great at all. I can understand that after a huge fire they decided to build everything using sandstone but honestly... it's ugly. It looks like a kind of urban desert in the middle of nowhere. 

I walked for a while and it was very hard to find something to do; the streets are just empty and what is supposed to be a park is so dry that you can't even see some fresh grass whereas the snow is not completely melted and the river is still frozen locally. In comparison to Vancouver... well... no... you can't even compare them!

The second day, I've decided to go to Calgary Tower and the Glenbow Museum. Finally I ended spending the day with Davies, a guy met at the hostel. We went to Chinook Shopping Centre (huge but nothing special) before going back to Downtown to see the tower and the museum. The observation desk at the top of the tower offers a great view on the city which confirmed my first idea of "urban desert in the middle of nowhere".

Fortunately, the Glenbow Museum was quite interesting and if I remember it's the biggest museum in this part of the country. I liked the exhibition of portraits taken by Karsh, a famous photographer, and all the historical stuff was well done.

In short, Calgary is not the kind of place I like but for a few days it's bearable.
The hostel where I'm staying, Wicked Hostels, is fortunately a good place and the staff is very nice. I talked with some people from different countries and this is good at least.

On the road to Calgary

Departure at 6:45 am from Vancouver Central Station, with a bus of the Greyhound company. Comfort is not what you're looking for when you take the bus, but it was okay. As I knew before I left, I couldn't sleep in the bus. Maybe I've closed my eyes for one hour, listening to some music, but that's it so it's not hard to guess how tired I was after 15 hours on this bus...

There's not many things to do on a bus and even during the 15min break-times you can't do anything except waiting... But the greatest thing to do is looking trough the windows and admire the changing landscapes. From British Columbia to Alberta, there are many things to see, especially some national parks and the mountains!
Here are some of the pictures I took :

 

Anyway, it was not so unbearable and it was cheap (90$). Maybe I'll take more the bus than the train finally...

Victoria, nice Victoria

Known as the capital city of British Columbia, Victoria is an other place that you have to see when you're in that part of the globe. And that's what I did for one day and a half last weekend.

Everyone told me before I went : "you'll see, one day is enough". I started to think so from the first afternoon there but now, I know there are places that I've never heard of before and that I should have seen...

Anyway, I arrived in Victoria around 6 pm on Sunday and after having checked-in at the Ocean Island Hostel, I decided to discover Victoria downtown by walking for a few hours. Nice place, nice architecture, probably the perfect place for a retired couple on holidays. I walked for a while, enjoying the good weather, the sunset and then the lights of the city. And then, at the end of the day, I was thinking : "one more day... I have to go to some touristic places cause I can't spend one more day wandering around in Downtown". That's when I decided to go to the Butchart Gardens and the Royal BC Museum on Monday.

The gardens in the morning and then the museum in the afternoon. As a stupid girl as I can be sometimes, I've just checked quickly the public transportation to go to the Butchart Gardens on the Internet. Sometimes I think I should always take a map or note everything... Anyway, I missed the stop where I had to change the bus and I ended waiting for a bus along the highway for half an hour. But it was not so bad... good weather at least.

Butchart Gardens is a nice place, like Victoria. Unfortunately, I think it was not the best season to go and finally there was not a lot of things to see but I enjoyed the walk.

The museum is also a good place to see. I'm not really in fond of real stuffed animals and I think that most of that kind of exhibitions are just disgusting - especially the way they put them in the jars and the showcases. I preferred the exhibition floor about the native people and the history of Vancouver Island. In short, it was interesting and I saw for the first time some works by Emily Carr, a famous artist of BC. (it's not the kind of paintings I like in fact...).

Even if I didn't plan to wander around once again, I did it, because I had nothing else to do. It was too late to visit an other place and too early to go back to the hostel. So I tried to go to different places and I walked again and again for a few hours. That's it for the sightseeing!

I met some people in my co-ed room in the hostel and I had a nice time with them the first night. The second one, I met by chance some people I've met before in Vancouver and I had a great time!

These two days in Victoria were nice and the way I visited it is the way I travel usually. Starting by wandering around to see what's interesting or not and then chose some places to spend more time. I've certainly missed many things but it was goooood.

Vancouver : more places

As I said, one post is not enough... so here are some other places I've seen in Vancouver :

- Gastown by night, one of the older - maybe the oldest - area of Vancouver with the famous steam clock which is finally just a clock which just makes a strange noise (a bit like a boat) every hour

- Yaletown, a kind of fashionable area which was an industrial zone at first

 

 

 - Chinatown, a real one where you feel as if you were in Asia or almost....

- Canada Place

- Queen Elizabeth Park