THE WIKI COMMUNITY

Wednesday 29 September 2010

Beautiful Vancouver, City Of The Sea & Mountains

By Aikednea Johansen

As one flies over Vancouver in the decent into the Canadian city's airport, the encircling wonderful natural scenery is already noticed with mountains on one side and the sea on the other. Once inside the baggage claim area of the international airport, visitors are greeted with huge Pacific Northwest Coast Indian art carvings. This adds to the overall flavor of nature and the environment that makes Vancouver so different from other major cities. When driving along Granville Street towards the city center, a person can't help but notice that the trees and hedges in the residential areas are a lot larger and taller than the ones we usually see elsewhere. One of the locals states that the remarkable growth of the area's plant life is due to the large amount of rainfall. Vancouver is close to both the ocean and the mountain range, therefore lots of rain is expected.

Stanley Park on the west side of downtown Vancouver is one of the most visited attraction. A drive around the island will reveal excellent photo spots of both the city and the ocean. Vancouver's Aquarium is likewise on site in Stanley Park and also a magnificent collection of Pacific Northwest Coastal Indian art totem poles. Of course, a person can generally sight at the tall trees that seem to touch the skies here. The Lion's Gate Suspension Bridge links Stanley Park with North Vancouver on the other side of the harbor. On the north side is Grouse Mountain, the area's closest ski resort to the city that has turned into an all year round attraction..

Back in downtown Vancouver, the Gastown district is among the top tourist areas for boutique shopping and souvenirs. Don't pass up the steam clock that rings on the hour. Vancouver has one of many largest Asian communities in North America thus the Chinatown nearby as expected has a few of the best dim sum luncheons outside of Hong Kong. More boutique shopping can be found in the Yaletown and Granville Island districts.

If time allows, among the recommended day trips to do from Vancouver is to drive up the Sea & Sky highway to Whistler, one of North America's largest ski resorts. Throughout the off ski season, Whistler is all season resort with a lot of activities such as hiking, biking, festivities and shopping in the village. A ride up the gondola here will enable visitors to obtain a bird's eye view of the majestic Canadian Rockies mountain range. The drive itself to Whistler, around two and a half hours along the coastline, offers many wonderful scenic points also.

Vancouver is a great city to visit as one can truly see how a major city can still be in extremely scenic surroundings. For those coming to Vancouver as the departure port of a cruise to either Hawaii or Alaska, it's very recommended to allocate at the very least a full day before or after the cruise to see what the city has to offer. As I pointed out before, on a sunny day with the sea on one side and the mountains on the other, Vancouver is really difficult to beat.

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