After a good night’s sleep, about as good as you can manage after 14 hours in the air and half a world of time difference, we’re up and out the door by 10am. The weather is doing us a favour, 19 degrees and bright sun, so we decide on a walking day. First stop, breakfast.
Mardi’s done her research and found The Templeton, one of the oldest diners in the city. The building itself dates to 1908, older than the Vogue, the Commodore, and the Orpheum, the grand old theatres a few blocks away. It opened as Adele’s Cafe in 1934, became the Top Top Cafe in 1957, and only took the name Templeton in 1996, though it’s been slinging breakfast under one name or another for most of a century. We sadly missed out on sliding into a red vinyl booth, checkerboard floor underfoot, a mini jukebox on the table that may or may not still work, and sat at a large Formica table in the sun at the front of the diner. A large jukebox in front of us, neon signs above us, we could easily be back in 1957! The service is impeccable, and friendly, like everything Canadian. We order poached eggs, avocado, sausage, and a piece of French toast, with a proper cup of English breakfast tea.
From there we weave down toward the harbour, ducking into shops along the way. Shoes, clothes, a Nike store, a Muji. Mardi’s been getting into knitting and crocheting lately, so we make for the wool shop in Gastown. There’s a handy seat and table right at the front of the store, and I take the opportunity to rest while she stocks up.
Gastown itself is worth the wander. A crowd is gathered, as it always seems to be, around the steam clock. It looks like a Victorian relic, but it’s nothing of the sort, built in 1977 by horologist Raymond Saunders, originally just to cover an unsightly steam grate from the city’s underground heating system and, unofficially, to stop people sleeping on the one warm patch of pavement in a cold town. It’s only partly steam-driven in practice, an electric motor does most of the real work, but the whistle is genuine, five brass pipes belting out the Westminster chime, the same tune as Big Ben, every quarter hour. We catch it at 1.15, 1.30, and 2, and I get a few photos of what has to be one of the most photographed pieces of street furniture in Canada.
We poke through an old-style candy store, then stop at a milk bar for a banana smoothie and a chocolate milkshake before continuing on to an old record shop and a fabric shop, where Mardi buys more than we have room for. Note to self, buy an extra suitcase.
From there we wander to Canada Place, our cruise departure point on Friday and also where Thursday’s bus tour to Whistler and Squamish leaves from, so it’s worth getting our bearings early. The place is heaving, even with no ship in port today. Vancouver’s downtown is dense right to the water’s edge, glass towers and convention centre crowding the harbour, and then almost without transition the land rears up into the North Shore Mountains, a rugged spur of the Pacific Coast Mountains rising so steeply from the sea that the city has never been able to sprawl into them. Grouse Mountain is the one everyone points to, its ski runs and gondola line visible from downtown, barely 20 minutes away by car yet more than 1,200 metres above sea level. Mount Seymour and Cypress sit either side of it, the three of them together forming a wall of green, and later in the year white, that Vancouver lives in the shadow of. We sit for a while, watching tourists chase buses and convention-goers chase each other, no cruise passengers yet, that’s Friday’s crowd.
The walk back up to downtown takes half an hour, unhurried, a genuinely beautiful afternoon for it. We rest in the room for a couple of hours before heading out again around 6.30, this time to the West End for dinner. Our friends Michael and Kathryn had recommended a Spanish place, Espana, a 25 minute walk away. We sit down just after 7 to tuna on crostini, baked potatoes, pork belly, and churros with hot chocolate sauce to finish, which does not need defending.
A 7-Eleven stop for water and snacks, then the 30 minute walk back from the West End to downtown. Early start tomorrow, whale watching, which we’re both looking forward to. A solid first full day in Vancouver.
