Our last day in Vancouver - Granville Island

Over the past seven weeks we have done so many Ho Ho buses we decided not to do Vancouver.
Probably a bad move we will never know. Another nice day so we decided to walk to the other side of the area and go to Granville Island a little island a few hundred meter from land. The concierge gave us a suggested walk, " much more interesting than walking straight down Hornby St which is boring" Off we went and initially we liked his suggestion until we reached Granville Street which was utterly filthy, smelt of urine and there were a lot of homeless people about. Not a good advertisement for the City. We walked on through Yaletown a nice village of preserved homes and many cute restaurants until we reached the harbour at a place called False Creek. Caught a lovely little ferry to Granville Island only 15 minutes or so. It. Is a lovely island full of shops, art galleries, food court and a very nice farmers market. Strolled around and came across the cement silos that had been painted into very interesting men as you can see from the pics. The artists are twin brothers who are renowned worldwide for the type of paintings they do. The cement silos and gaily painted concrete mixers are still in use.
 After a lovely lunch we caught the ferry back to the Hornby St stop and walked back to our hotel named Hotel Le Soleil, through a lovely avenue of trees that were delightful with many changing colours and far from boring.
Later on we met Emma, a former work colleague of Gloria's, her husband Simon and their son Brendan for a very expensive meal in a very large busy restaurant on the top of a building (thus the expense I think) and then home for our last sleep in Canada.

Looking back to Vancouver from ferry (good reflections)

Two bridges

Painted silos

Painted concrete mixers

Hornby Street

Emma, Brendan, Gloria

Changing trees in the Fall

Beautiful City of Vancouver and the magnificent Butchart Gardens





Beauutiful

Our flight from Toronto to Vancouver was quite good but we had a couple of bummers, first our flight was cancelled and we were put on a later flight but wait listed for an earlier flight which was successful except when we arrived no luggage and to top it off Gloria left her kindle on the plane. After much soul searching chatting to someone in India from Air Canada the kindle has been located and our luggage arrived.
For sometime we have wanted to see the Butchart Gardens at Victoria and we had a booking for a tour that was to last 14 hours, picked up at our lovely hotel and drove about three quarters of an hour to the ferry. Ended up having to wait for over an hour as the first ferry was full. The bus and it's passengers are loaded and the trip took one and three quarters hours where we unloaded (see pic) and drove a further three quarters to the city centre where we were left to our resourses for three hours.

Victoria is a beautiful place dominated by the harbour , the Majestic Empress hotel and Govt house ( see pics). Strolled  around took a few pics and had lunch at a seafood restaurant overlooking the water where we had seafood chowder, calamari and halibut and chips yumow.

In memory of returned soldiers

The Empress Hotel

Saw some locals in town

We were then transported another half an hour to the beautiful Butchart gardens did I say beautiful! they are absolutely amazing the design and colour is unbelievably magnificent. the photos will explain. So we had to repeat this all over again and we arrived back at our hotel at10 pm. What a day. With everything we had done I'd forgotten it was fathers day but saw some good wishes from all the family so thank very much. Tonight we are meeting Gloria's friend Emma and her family who are also in town for dinner. Then tomorrow we are off on the big bird. BRING IT ON.

Toronto Canada a busy City

Our train trip from Montreal to Toronto took about five and half hours but it was good without being spectacular and we saw some nice farmland and good scenery at times.
Checked into the Hilton in downtown Toronto which failed miserably compared to other hotels of this staure.
It is six star in price only despite having a fabulous view of the CN Tower from our suite.
The HOHO was very busy yesterday because of the enormous amount of road closures due to maintenance and also because Toronto is in the middle of the Toronto International Film Festival, where the are enormous lines of people lined up to secure tickets to the venues.
On Wednesday Night we had drinks with our travel agent who we have dealt with recently, it was nice to put a face to the email communication we have been having over the years.
The City has grown since we were last here and although we enjoyed it the atmosphere was not good even thought the weather has been good. Today we fly to Vancouver for the last leg of our trip.
The photos below depict Gloria on the train, the view of the CN Tower from our hotel room, Dundas Square a very busy city centre meeting point and the statue at the Rogers Centre the home of the Blue Jays the ice hockey and basketball teams.

Cruise comes to an end in Montreal

Our time on board Seabourn Quest came to a conclusion when we disembarked in Montreal yesterday. A good cruise was had by all even though we missed two ports and had some very unpleasant weather at times. Quebec was just fabulous and it didn't take long to work out that Montreal didn't stack up. Apart from our hotel which is very very good we were extremely disturbed to see the homeless lying around everywhere. There seem to be no end of them and beggars.
Did the Ho Ho bus for two hours and must say it was good, the guide was great and view from Mont Royale was great overlooking the City and the Olympic Stadium.
Today we caught the Metro to the Botanical Gardens which were created in 1937 and extend over 75 Ha. Or 185 acres. The highlight was the Chinese garden where designers decide what they would want and then send them to Shanghai to be manufactured. They are then returned to Montreal and installed. All this takes a full twelve months for a different theme each year. The gardens are really beautiful with everything in full bloom, even down to a fruit and vegetable garden. I managed to pick a couple of tomatoes and realised just what tomatoes used to taste like when I grew them myself and were ripened on the vine. Tomorrow we leave for Toronto by train.

Quebec City Canada Montmorency Falls

Our second day in this delightful city turned out to be a wet foggy day for our tour of the Montmorency Falls about 15 km from the City. Our coach took us to the top of the falls where we walked across the bridge to view the river feeding the falls. we walked down to a platform to see the falls coming down. A cable car then took us to the base of the falls to view them from another direction. These falls aren't as big as Niagara but are higher we were told.
We then went over the river to D'Orlens an island adjacent to Quebec City. This is where all the fruit and produce are grown. This area is very spectacular lots of quaint houses and farms. A visit to a factory where they make maple leaf syrup from tapping into the bark of over 1500 trees where they collect the maple leaf water and reduce it over heat to make the syrup.
We arrived in Montreal this morning and have settled into a lovely suite where we will stay until Wednesday.