Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is located on the west coast of British Columbia, Canada. Remarkably enough, it was founded under the name Gastown in 1867, which in those days consisted of a settlement located around a logging sawmill and tavern. Today’s Gastown is located just next to Canada Place and with its cute old-fashioned style, has become a popular place to visit and hang out for both locals and visitors. Vancouver was renamed and incorporated as a city in 1886, as the transcontinental railway reached it in order to take advantage of its large natural sea port and became a vital trading link between the Orient, Eastern Canada and London. Today Vancouver has become, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful cities of North America (my favourite, anyway). It is the city I was born in and although as Austrian-Canadian I have spent most of my life between the two, it will always be my home.

A popular filming location, my siblings and I used to watch TV shows like MacGuyver, Booker, 21 Jump Street and the X-Files as children to experience home during the time we were in Austria. The Film and Movie industry is a very important one in Vancouver and the number of film production studios in the Vancouver and surrounding area have given Vancouver the film industry nickname of “Hollywood North”. Needles to say it is perfectly common and normal to walk by the odd movie set when taking a stroll in Vancouver, don’t be surprised if you come across it.

Canada, being cosmopolitan as it is, you can image that Vancouver is no different. Vancouver has pretty much anything and everything you could think of to offer, can find pretty much anything here; loads of hotels of amazing quality to choose from, bars, lounges etc and one of the best things is that unlike here in Europe, there are plenty of restaurants from many different countries that serve authentic food, as close as it would get in the actual home country (you can even find REAL K-TV Karaoke rooms, private ones just like in Asia!).

Quick orientation:

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Although Greater Vancouver is huge, the actual city itself is a good size and it’s therefore not that difficult to find your way around. As in most places, many of the interesting features (although one could argue that everything really is interesting) are located reasonably near each other. I would use Canada Place as the starting point to navigate, as it is easy to orient yourself according to it (I may as well mention that the Olympic Torch is located just nearby and the Waterfront Station – where the Sky Train brings to you the Airport, the Sea Bus brings you to North Vancouver and the trains bring you to the Fraser Valley).

Canada Place is located up North at the Waterfront, right next to Gastown (East). Once past Gastown you will reach Chinatown before leaving the city centre. To the West of Canada Place you will approach Stanley Park and leave the City via the Lions Gate Bridge (the Bridge which collapsed in the Final Destination 5 movie), across of which you will find North and West Vancouver (Residential Area) and the rest of Greater Vancouver, to which we will come another time (let’s just focus on the City Centre for now). If you head down the street towards the south from Canada Place (Howe or better yet, Burrard Street) you will come to the main shopping street, Robson Street, where you will find loads of restaurants, bars, shops, both normal and souvenir, the Vancouver Art Gallery is also just around the corner.

Past Robson street is Davie Street (also known as Davie Village, Vancouver’s Gay Community and also the West End), on one end you will find Cambie Bridge, which leads to Kitsilano (another Beachy Residential area) and the Vancouver Aquatic Centre, on the other end you will find the beach and the beginning or end of the Seawall, Vancouver’s most popular running and cycling path, which pretty much leads all around the island and into Stanley Park (a lovely walk/run/cycle, this one). So there you have it, Vancouver in a nutshell. Obviously there are about a million things to explore and discover there, but if you orient yourself according to this you should be ok, love this city just because it’s so easy to understand, will always be home.

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