The final day of my short Vancouver getaway
The timing for this short visit to Vancouver worked out very well. After 2 gorgeous days, the weather was forecast to turn sour as I left. I had no plans for Day 3, and I didn’t really feel driven to see or accomplish anything. Wandering around looking at flowers, architecture, and art – in the sunshine as long as possible.
I started the day off by walking 5 blocks up to Davie Street for a good breakfast. Joe’s Grill gets good reviews, and it was perfect. The loaded House Special omelette for $15.50 fueled me up for a good morning, and the classic rock music being played was appropriate for my thoughts about the early 1970s when I lived 4 blocks away.
This part of Davie Street has always been particularly colourful. In the 1960s it was one of the main areas where hippies gathered, and some of the city’s legendary music venues like the short-lived Retinal Circus date to that era. Then in the early ’70s the gay community became much more visible, and that remains the case today.
#WeAmaze is a multi-year promotion of The West End, particularly Davie, Denman, And Robson Streets.
The Davie Village Community Garden was developed in about 2008 on the former site of a Shell gas station and small mall. The property owners allowed the garden to be developed in exchange for a large reduction in their property taxes while they came up with a suitable development plan.
Now, the garden site is about to become to location of a 43 story residential/commercial tower.
The West End is rapidly losing its historic buildings, but the Holly Lodge on Davie Street remains. Built in 1910-11, it’s the only Vancouver residential apartment building designed by San Francisco architects Wright, Rushforth & Cahill.
Not being photographically inspired by the buildings I was seeing, I was soon back on the waterfront. Flowers, the sea, a sandy beach – ahhhhh…. 🙂
The sculpture by Bernar Venet from France is titled “217.5 arc x 13”. The title reflects its precise mathematical composition – 13 corten steel arcs curved at a 217.5-degree angle.
Although I saw a few people playing with their dogs on the beach over the 3 days I was there, there are many signs saying it’s not allowed. A $2,000 fine – wow!
Sunset Beach Park, created in 1959, completed the dream of a continuous strip of public waterfront along English Bay. The last building on that waterfront, the 1928 Crystal Pool, was demolished in 1974.
The next photo shows the first water taxi dock at the foot of False Creek, with the Coast Guard station on the opposite side.
From there I went back to my hotel, checked out and asked them to hold my daypack for a few hours while I continued exploring. I shot the next photo of the Vancouver House project from under the Granville Street Bridge, then made my way back to the waterfront path.
A bike tossed into False Creek. It was quite jarring to see this vandalism along the path…
A glimpse at what looks like it might be a pretty cool life 🙂
The amount of park space in one of Canada’s most densely-populated areas continued to amaze me.
Khenko, the fisher, is the Coast Salish mythical name for the great blue heron. This large sculpture was created by Douglas R. Taylor to celebrate the return of the birds to False Creek, which used to be a very busy industrial area full of sawmills and boat builders in particular.
This sculpture made me think of a whaling harpoon but I couldn’t find a descriptive panel.
There was a lovely variety of colours in this park.
If I was going to pick a single image to describe this Vancouver getaway, this would be the one. There were some multi-million-dollar yachts in the marina to the right.
I wondered in my last blog post about how many people are injured by getting hit by bicycles. It seems that actually is a concern – “You’re not expecting to be hit by a cyclist today”.
I approached the next very large sculpture from the wrong angle, and it took me a while to figure it out. Some of the panels seemed to be describing photos.
From the other side, from the right angle, some photos could be discerned high on the sculpture.
The next photo shows the entire sculpture. There’s a lot of interesting historical information on the panels.
One more sculpture – this is The Time Top, by J. Pethick.
I was very surprised and very pleased to find a leash-free dog park along the path, and spent a while watching dogs and their owners playing.
It was now after noon, so I started walking back towards the hotel. I once again passed The Two Parrots bar and restaurant, then did a U-turn and went in for lunch. Fish and chips with a couple of good local beers and a chat with the server was a fine way to end the main part of my exploring. The next photo was shot from the sidewalk in front of the table I’d been sitting at.
A nice splash of colour along Davie Street.
Beside my hotel, a very deep excavation is starting to fill with the concrete base of a new building.
At 2:20 I started walking back to the Yaletown/Roundhouse station of the Canada Line, and by 3:00 I was up on the observation deck at YVR. I had 5 hours to kill but that was okay.
7:55 pm – on board and ready to head home. I was asleep before the wheels left the ground, and woke up as we descended into Whitehorse. I don’t think I had ever slept like that on a flight before.
The final pedometer summary of the trip – I walked 43.4 kilometers in the 3 days. It was an excellent trip in every way.
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