Today was a day of contrasting gardens. The one more highly rated in the guide book was rather disappointing, the other was a joy! We started (via SkyTrain) at Queen Elizabeth Park which did have views out over the city - and now with a blue, cloudless sky - and a couple of pleasant quarry gardens but it didn't have much to detain us for long. We'd not really planned to visit VanDusen Botanical Gardens but had time to spare and it is in the same area and we wer...

Saturday was another dullish day but dry. We started the day at a Trees Organic Coffee outlet where we learnt that they served the best cheesecake in Vancouver - not even Dave could eat cheesecake for breakfast so we had to return for lunch. You'll need to look at the photo! Between times we strolled around the Gastown district, stopping to browse in First Nation art stores. Slightly madly we bought a print that we liked - hope we can keep it flat for the next ...

Another first! Our first flight on a seaplane was a fun experience. We had the seats immediately behind the pilot. The take off and landing were exceptionally smooth and brisk on the water - much gentler than on land. Interestingly it looked like there was an 'air traffic control' at the entrance to Victoria Harbour that was managing the traffic, giving our plane priority to take off over a whale watching boat that was also leaving the harbour. And the first ti...

Oh wow! What a wonderful first day we've had here in Canada. Having arrived at Vancouver airport last night at 2pm local time, we somehow managed to stay awake until about 6pm (that's 2am the next day according to our body clocks and follows an early morning start to Manchester airport) so an early start this morning was easy. We took the train (think driverless like the DLR) from Vancouver airport to the Waterfront, a quick taxi ride and checked in at The Prince...