TRAVELOGUE NO. 8
PACIFIC COASTAL CRUISE LOS ANGELES TO VANCOUVER
SATURDAY , May 15, 2010
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA
Sapphire Princess arrived in Vancouver around 7:00 a.m. and sailed down past Stanley Park and the Lions Gate Bridge on to Canada Place, the beautiful cruise terminal in Vancouver. Once again, we were blessed with nice weather and a very high cloud cover. The jagged peaks of the Coastal Mountains to the north were still covered with snow, which added to the beautiful landscape that we saw. The Vancouver skyline is dramatic with numerous glass sided skyscrapers . The reflections of the city could be seen from every place you looked which gave you a different perspective each time you turned around.
Due to the fact that there were three ships in port simultaneously (The Sapphire Princess, The Coral Princess and the Holland America Zuirdam) our disembarkation process was a bit slow – but it gave us added time on board and to say our good byes to new friends - and prolonged the realization that the cruise was over.
Our motor coach came and whisked us off to our hotel. We stayed at the Westin Bayshore on the waterfront. We had a beautiful room with a bay view. The large marble shower was perhaps the most welcome features of the room as it was four times bigger than the one on the ship.
After we freshened up, we went down and grabbed a bite to eat and then walked over towards Stanley Park. There is a walkway all along the sea wall not only includes the 5 ½ miles inside Stanley Park, but it continues to the west side and past Granville Island and also continues to the east all down towards Gas Town. The path was very busy with roller bladders, bicyclists and walkers all out enjoyed the beautiful weather.
As we walked along the boat harbor, we passed by the Vancouver Rowing Club where we saw several dozen rowing sculls and hundreds of boats moored in the marina and empty tall masts. As we stood at the water’s edge and looked north, before us was a spectacular panorama. The water in the lagoon where the small boat harbor was seemed to be as calm as glass, with the reflections of the sailboat masts reflecting in the waters. The Tudor Style Rowing Club was freshly painted with a dark, burnt red base color on the main part of the building with striking white contrasts on the decorative facia. Beyond the Rowing Club, were the tree tops of Stanley Park – each seemed to be a different color of green, yellow or red. Beyond that were the green rolling hills of the Coastal Mountains. Then, in the background, far in the distance were the snow capped peaks of the mountains.
We continued on around the lagoon and up into the park where we found the Horse Drawn Trolley. We boarded our trolley and got to sit in the very first row next to our drive and tour narrator, Emma. Emma was a woman in her 50’s. Her hair was blonde and she wore her hair up underneath a beige,visor hat. She wore a small pair of wire-rimmed glasses. She had a few gentle wrinkles starting at the corner of her eyes. She wore a multi-color beige woolen pullover sweater and jeans. Her voice was articulate and clear as she began to talk about the two horses that would be pulling us around the park. “Reno” was a red, draft horse, very similar looking to a Clydesdale; and “Pepper” was a Berjeron with a salt and pepper colored coat. When she was read to take off, Emma merely said “Come on boys” and gentle tugged on the reins and off we went.
Stanley Park covers over 1,000 acres of land – which makes it larger than Central Park in Manhattan. There are two lighthouses in the park and the sea wall walkways is 5 ½ miles long and goes all around the perimeter of the park. On top of that, there are countless hiking trails and pathways through the park There is a cricket field. A game of cricket can last up to five days; but they do stop to have tea and sandwiches. We traveled slowly along the Burrard Inlet out to where we had a view of the Lions Gate Bridge and up the Capillano Valley. The park is thick and plush with numerous different types of bushes and ferns; and interspersed among the variety of green were colorful rhododendrons, rose bushes, forsythia (a bright yellow bush), and every color of azalea as well as Japanese red maple trees. Trees in the park range from the Western Red Cedar (which is the best wood to carve totem poles and canoes) to huge Douglas Firs and an occasional redwood. The colors of green cover the spectrum from a yellowish cast to the deep, dark forest green; and this adds to the dimension of the landscape.
There is an aquarium inside Stanley Park, as well as a miniature railroad that children and adults may all enjoy riding on, as well as a petting zoo and a gorgeous rose garden. Our horse-drawn trolley tour lasted an hour – which seemed to fly by and all of a sudden we found ourselves back where we started. We weren’t ready to leave the park yet; so we took off up the hill, going through the park from the seawall near the Rowing Club up through the park to the rose garden. Along the way, our paths crossed with two “black” squirrels, which were busy gathering something to munch on and then scurried away. I saw one small red-headed woodpecker and a few black birds, but not much more animal life than that. Once we arrived at the rose garden, we saw a bronze memorial to President Warren G. Harding which marked the spot of a speech he made there in Stanley Park during his presidency. Though the roses were not blooming yet, the rhododendrons, azaleas, pansies, iris, birds of paradise, hydrangeas and several other different species of flowers were all in bloom and added a variegated color display that was similar to that at Butchart Gardens in Victoria.
The grounds of Stanley Park are meticulously groomed and kept in pristine condition. Even after the big storm in 2006 which came through Victoria with a vengeance and downed over 10,000 trees, the gardeners worked fast and cleared the debris; and now there are only slight reminisces of the violent storm. What is interesting is that though the trees themselves uprooted and fell, the gardeners chose to leave the roots in place and exactly where they fell to show the visitors to the park the extent of the damage of that storm.
After our walk, we went back to our room and freshened up and then caught a cab to Gas Town. On our way there, we asked the cab driver to stop by the Olympic Flame which is outside the Pan Pacific Hotel. The structure appears to be ice-like crystals of massive proportions. The flame was not lit as it is put out after the end of the Olympics, but it is still a magnificent sight to see.
We enjoyed dinner at our favorite sidewalk café in Gas Town, the Water Street Café which is directly across the street from the Vancouver Steam Clock. As luck would have it, we sat directly across from another couple who had been on our cruise on the Sapphire; so we enjoyed a little chit-chat during our meal.
The sun does not set until 8:45 p.m. here in Vancouver; so we were able to stay outside at the café and enjoy a very pleasant evening. The people watching from this vantage point was quite interesting. Mini-skirts have made a return to the fashion industry after being dormant since the late 1960’s. Platform heals are also very popular. After our delightful dinner, we sat and just talked about our trip and commented on how it is always good to go home, but sad that it is ending.
Tomorrow we are going to go whale watching in hopes of finding some of those “BLACK & WHITES” (orcas) off of Vancouver in the Gulf Islands. That will be the final Travelogue for this trip – so one more to go!
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