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Stanley Park in Vancouver is a must.
There's a cool market across the river on Granville Island - and Granville Island area is worth a wander regardless.
It's generally a nice city to wander through as it's not massive.
I'd also do ferry to Victoria Island if you are there for a few days.
There's plenty of museums etc as well that get good reviews, but we didn't do any.
Hard to say which is better - Jasper is smaller, but you can go for a walk out of town quite easily (beware of bears… seriously) and it has more of a frontier-town atmosphere; Banff is bigger and more touristy, but there's much more to do.
Go to the Columbia Icefield if you can - it's about halfway between the two but I think is easier to get to from Banff. There's also Lake Louise quite close to Banff if you like walking and mountain scenery.
Victoria on Vancouver Island is nicer than Vancouver itself, you can get there by ferry.
We did this all by public transport and tours, which weren't expensive.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
A mate has suggested getting a Greyhound bus from Banff to Vancouver. Any experience? I thought Greyhounds weren't that great these days?
http://brassneck.ca/
http://steamworks.com/brew-pub
http://parallel49brewing.com/tasting/
Food/drink that are fairly central:
http://www.chambar.com/
http://www.medinacafe.com/
http://www.kingstontaphouse.com/
We've always had a suite at L'Hermitage but it sounds like it might be over budget.
The library is an interesting building if architecture floats your boat. The art gallery is decent enough but doesn't compare to high end EU galleries really:
http://www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/
A lot of TV shows are filmed in Vancouver so you may find that you recognize some locations.
It's a very nice city and there are more outdoory things to do to the north, e.g. Capilano, Grouse Mountain.
Granville Island is quite good. We walked over the bridge (it is very high indeed!) to get to it, but you might find public transport easier! There's a market and a sake brewery there (a Japanese guy has managed to grow his own rice in BC!) and various places to eat.
What else?
Gastown and Chinatown are quite interesting. Some parts are slightly rundown but nothing scary or dodgy.
Canada Place is ok but felt a bit corporate.
Wildcard: the Vancouver police museum:
http://vancouverpolicemuseum.ca/
which is near
Pat's Pub, which has a good selection of beers and live music - slightly less upmarket area but fine too.
I wouldn't bother with a car unless you really think you'll need one/have a particular place to get to that public transport won't handle. It's all very walkable (not like a lot of US cities) and trams/buses work well. Taxis aren't stupidly expensive. Buses didn't seem to give change/accept (large?) notes - we jumped on one and the driver heard our accents, saw our note, printed two tickets and said "Make sure you have change next time!" and laughed... we got the tickets for nothing and he made sure that we knew when to get off too: the majority of people we encountered were extremely friendly and kind.
If you like hipsterish stuff then this will be unmissable!
http://meatandbread.ca
Vancouver:-
- Robson St is the main road (their equivalent of Oxford St) and there are some music shops to be found.
- Stanley Park - take the sea wall walk or ride round on bikes. It also has a cool aquarium
- Gastown - revived dock area and loads of cafes and restaurants
- Granville Island - great market and food
- North Vancouver is mainly residential but you can cross over to it via the Lions Gate suspension bridge which also opens up to the Pacific. Once in N.Vancouver, you can go up to the mountains and a range called The Lions. You can also visit the Capilano suspension bridge and walk across it (80 ft up and spans a gorge)
- You can also take a sea plane ride
- Despite producing a good few beers, British Columbia is pretty hot on drinking and they seemed to prefer you to have it as an accompaniment to your meal. We were in pub restaurant waiting for the lunchtime rush to finish before we ate and so played pool and drank about 3 bottles of Bud a piece over a period of 1.5 hrs and the bar staff said "Wow! You guys are knocking them back. Are you gonna eat and I hope you're not driving"? Coffee shops and restaurants are plentiful.
Lake Louise is very impressive and beautiful, even when iced over in the Winter months.Banff is a quaint town and you can take the gondola up Sulphur Mountain. There's also a lake nearby called Lake Miniwanka!!!!
Jasper didn't have much but we did go out onto the glacial field in a moon truck.
Of course, the skiing in these areas during the winter period right up to March/April will always be superb.
If you've time and a few days, take the ferry over to Vancouver Island (about the size of Great Britain) and get up to Campbell River or Tofino to do some whale watching. If you get onto the western side, you're on the Pacific Rim and it's all very Jurassic Park. There's also some great forests, particularly Cathedral Grove, which has some massive and extremely old trees.
Great, friendly people and beautiful country and nearly emigrated to Vancouver (one of the top places in the world to live) but it was just too far away from family.
I hope you get there and if so, have a great time!
I had thought it was easier to go there from Banff, but looking at the old photos we stopped on the way from Jasper to Banff rather than going back.
Amazing place.
We made two mistakes with that. The first was to look at a map in the centre of Banff which showed Sulphur Mountain at the bottom left. So we decided to walk, since it wasn't far. After about an hour we still hadn't got there, but just as we were thinking we'd gone the wrong way we met another couple who were standing in the road also looking lost, and looking at their map - which turned out to be basically the same one, and in very small print at the bottom it said "Not To Scale" . It's about five miles…
The second was that it was raining that day, and the cloud base was low enough that when we got to the top all we could see was the inside of a cloud. We didn't realise how spectacular the view was until we were back down at the bottom in the restaurant and saw the big panoramic photos on the wall.
So don't go if it's cloudy, and take the bus .
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Vancouver is a great city, Stanley Park is a must visit.
I couldn't understand why people raved about Granville Island though, I thought it was a bit of a dump, being under a large road bridge.
Like us, did you not notice all the taxis going back n' forth?
The really odd thing was that the couple we met were Irish, but it turned out the woman's sister worked in Edinburgh... in the same office as my wife! Bizarre small-world coincidence.
At least we're not the only idiots .
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein