An Island and a Bridge

20/06/15

A trip to the market is on the agenda today! We decided to skip breakfast in anticipation of the niceys at the market so we got up nice and early and made a move. From our hotel we walked to the English Bay area and along to the Aqua Bus which took us to Granville Island - $3.50 for a 30 second boat ride seems a bit extreme but apparently it’s all part of the experience. At least that’s what I told Rory as he was emptying his wallet. Once we were on Granville we made our way to the market which is definitely worth the trip.

It reminded me of Quincy Market in Boston and St Georges Market in Belfast; there are individual shops and stalls offering everything from paintings to flowers and of course – food! I like to assess all the options before I make a decision so I made Rory walk around the market about five times before I’d buy anything.  In the end we went for a donut, chocolate, some pizza and the most delicious hot beef sandwich.

It’s probably not surprising that we didn’t want to walk back to town so we took a taxi to Canada Place where we bought our tickets for the Capilano Suspension Bridge. The bridge was originally built in 1889, using hemp ropes and cedar planks. Thankfully they’ve upgraded it a bit since then! After crossing the 140 metres long and 70 metres high bridge we walked through the rest of the park and gave the Treetops Adventure a go. Despite being busy it was nice to be up in the trees. One thing I noticed was the amount of children whinging because the rope bridges were wobbly – children are supposed to be fearless to the point of stupidity, what happened to their sense of adventure?

I thought the park would be bigger but other than that I can’t fault it. There were picnic areas, restaurants, a really good gift shop and even staff playing traditional music while in traditional costumes. I’d definitely recommend it if you’re ever in Vancouver and fancy doing something a bit different.

Another great thing about the park is that they put on a free shuttle to and from the city and our bus driver was a true gent and dropped us off at the bottom of our street which was having a Car Free Day. It’s basically a huge block party so we grabbed a milkshake and walked from stall to stall before heading back to the hotel to watch The Following. It was the perfect end to another great day in Vancouver.