Hi, friends! Today I’m picking back up on our Spring Break travels to the Northwest. If you missed Day 1 in Olympic National Park (here) or Day 2 in Victoria, B.C (here and here), you can go back and read them but they’ aren’t essential for today’s post, which is all about our first day in Vancouver, B.C. at Granville Island Public Market! It was one of our favorite days of the whole trip, where we just walked and talked and ate all day (the best part! 😉 ). So without further ado, let’s get right into it!
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We woke up early again this morning to take the first ferry from Victoria to Vancouver. Since we rushed so much to get to our first ferry ride into Victoria the day before, we tried to wake up early enough to grab coffees and a bite to eat before making the drive to the ferry station in Tsawwassen-Swartz Bay.
Unfortunately for us, just because we were waking up early didn’t mean that local coffee shops and bakeries would be open for us. Wamp wamp! So even though we waited as long as we possibly could outside one of the local shops to open, we ended up having to bail on that plan and stop by a Starbucks across the street instead. Sorry! But it had to be done if we were going to make it to the ferry on time. If there’s one thing about Starbucks that I can really value, it’s that they are open early enough for those times you really need them! (Allen is not a fan of Starbucks, so he’s hiding his “morning milkshake” aka mocha frappaccino from my camera in the picture below. Haha!)
Once we were fueled up on caffeine and turkey bacon sandwiches, we headed for the ferry dock and straight onto the ferry.
Allen may look like he’s warm in this photo, but it was actually quite chilly outside and super breezy (see my hair below). But like the last ferry ride we took, we were both just so happy and excited to be on the boat and riding out into open water. So a little discomfort was worth it!
Perfect day for a ferry ride into Vancouver! Just look at those beautiful blue skies!
Probably my favorite photo from the entire trip. I mean…the colors, our happy smiles, the water! It’s all so picture perfect. Which is very much how this vacation felt while we were on it. It was a fantastic trip with so many new sights and experiences that we got to explore together! It was just THE best!
Allen living that ferry life though…haha. His hat in this photo makes me laugh every time!
Once we arrived on land again (it was a quick ~1.5 hour ferry ride), we just started driving. As you know from my previous posts about this trip, we kinda totally just winged our way through each place we traveled to. And it ended up turning out surprisingly well! Three weren’t actually too many things we would have done differently (other than having good local dinner spots to go to), but that’s not necessarily something that makes or break a trip, ya know?
At any rate, I had no idea what we were going to do when we got to Vancouver, nor what to expect. Luckily, Allen remembered Granville Island Public Market from when he visited with his family as a kid. And knowing my deep, deep affinity for all things food-related, he thought (correctly!) that I would love stopping by there on our way to wherever we would end up that day. Little did we know we would spend the entire day there, eating our way through all the little shops and markets as we watched the picturesque sailboats floating by.
If you don’t know the Vancouver area (and I wouldn’t really expect you to…I didn’t!), I’ve provided a map for reference below. So you can see Granville Island Public Market down near the lower left, Vancouver proper in the center, and Stanley Park in the upper left. And if I remember correctly, we stayed within a few miles of the southern entrance into Stanley Park. It wasn’t the best location, but did the trick since we had a rental car with us to get around town.
Here’s our first view coming into Granville Island.
We were actually quite lucky to find a parking spot super close to the Public Market. We nabbed it when we saw someone pulling out as we were just driving by to see what the market was all about. So I don’t have many tips for you on finding parking in the area since we ended up getting so lucky! But I’m pretty sure there were plenty of spots available for public parking within walking distance to the market.
On our way to the market, we passed by this cool industrial park area where these tanks were painted as bright characters that reminded me of Tito or Otto in Rocket Power. Haha! Kinda cool!
And then we arrived at the market, which turned out to be quite bustling on a Saturday morning!
On our way in, we found a sweet golden retriever puppy outside the main door and couldn’t help but stop to pet (and hug) him. So so cute! And as we found out later, he belonged to one of the flower shop owners inside. So he was well accustomed to getting lots of love throughout the day!
First view inside the market! And what a view! So much to take in! There were the traditional items such as apples and oranges and berries, but also exotic fruits like gooseberries and rambutans, and other ones I don’t even know the names to!
Is there anything more satisfying than these giant, juicy strawberries stacked into pyramids and then lined up perfectly in rows?! I mean…
Those funny looking orange berries below? Oh those are the beloved gooseberries we fell in love with on this trip. We had no idea what they were before, but quickly learned they are one of the best fruits ever. And while we didn’t end up getting a basket in Vancouver, we did get some (and immediately devoured the whole container) in Seattle, which I’ll cover in later posts! All this being said…if ever you have the opportunity to get gooseberries, GET THEM! Looking back on this picture, I wish we would’ve gotten a container of them (or two) to snack on while walking around Vancouver.
There were also tons of delicious looking pastries, and pies, and cookies in shops around the market.
I mean…rainbow cake!? Sign me up!
And the freshest looking baked breads too!
Mini pies and quiches too!
We ended up trying the buttermilk cheddar cheese and pepper scone pictured above. I had never tried a savory scone before (only sweet ones like blueberry or cinnamon), but it was delicious!
And then we found the flower market. Oh. My. Goodness. I went back by this place probably 3-4 times and almost gave into my temptation of buying a full bunch of peonies. But we just had no way of traveling with them and the last thing I wanted to do was buy them and then promptly have to throw them away. No flower should have to go through that! Especially when they are this pretty!
So I ended up just walking by them and enjoying them several times on our walk through the market instead.
After walking around the entirety of the market, Allen and I decided we had taken in all the options and it was time to decide on something for lunch.
Allen went with a polish sausage with sauerkraut, and loved it! I tried the portion without the sauerkraut and agree that it was super yummy!
As for me, I was still missing the fact that we hadn’t gotten any fish and chips in Victoria while we were there, so that’s what I decided to have. And right outside the door we found the perfect little sitting spot to enjoy our lunch by the boats.
The epitome of ‘lunch with a view’, no?!
After such a filling lunch, we decided to walk around the boat docks and bay surrounding the market. And let me tell you…there were some seriously gorgeous water front views to take in all around us!
After walking around the bay for a bit, we decided it was time for dessert. So we headed back into the market to find something sweet and scrumptious.
Obviously the fruit looked amazing, but we both had our eyes on something a little more…chocolaty!
So we headed back to the bakery where we saw the rainbow cake and cinnamon records (below) to find something we could split!
And we ultimately decided on this decadent looking triple chocolate mousse cake with the prettiest gold glittery topping. It was just decadent and rich enough to satisfy both or our sweet tooths and we enjoyed it again outside on the docks.
Afterwards we headed back inside to make sure we hadn’t missed anything we just had to have! I loved stumbling upon this unique flower shop that specialized in dried flower arrangements. I love their overall earthy, organic aesthetic too! It was so different!
And then we found something I just couldn’t live without at one of the Italian shops…OLIVES! Oh my goodness do I love olives.
Green olive. Black olive. Small olive. Big olive. I like them ALL! I had found my version of food heaven on Earth! 😛 Don’t worry, I shared a couple of them with Allen!
As for Allen, he discovered his love of Birch Beer, which is a lot like Root Beer but with more of a spearmint aftertaste. He has been on the hunt (no exaggeration) for Birch Beer in Boulder ever since he discovered it in Granville Public Market and is now thoroughly obsessed with the stuff. It’s funny to look back on his first tasting of it now!
After filling up on olives and Birch Beer, we still weren’t quite ready to leave. So we walked to the adjacent shops surrounding the market. I always feel a little uneasy about taking photos in shops, so I don’t have any pictures of those. But one of the shops we walked through was a hand woven clothing shop where you could watch people actually weaving the items for sale on a loom! Super cool to see how the weaving process works and to watch actual pieces come to life! Another one was a really neat soap shop (with sooo many different, colorful bars of soap) where I found this super cute Westie key chain (random, I know) that I should’ve gotten as a gift for my mom. Oh well, next time! And there were all kinds of other shops, ranging from artisanal chocolate shops to fancy paper shops and everything in between! Sometimes it’s just fun to walk around in shops you’ve never been to before just for the fun of it!
After waking around the shops, we headed back out towards the water for one more view of the bay and boats. We even had someone snap a picture of the two of us together! Love having vacation pictures with BOTH of us in it! (The struggle! :P)
We walked by a little area being used for boat maintenance/repair too that was really neat to watch!
After a full day of walking and eating our way through the Granville Public Market, we were finally ready to head into the downtown Vancouver area where we would be residing for our 2-night stay in the city. Once we got checked in, we went up to our room and laid down for a quick nap and mapped out our plans for the next day.
For a late night snack we ended up wandering out for some gelato at a place right around the corner from our hotel.
Gelato, and ice cream, and really anything sweet for that matter makes us so happy! I got chocolate and tiramasu flavors–yum! I can’t quite remember which flavors Allen got, but I know he loved them!
After gelato, Allen and I went walking around the area and found a grocery store where we got a Ceasar salad kit, bananas, and babybel cheese (which I had never had before!). We walked back to the hotel and had our little make-shift dinner in bed while we watched The Last King of Scotland. It’s a super powerful movie that covers a story about the Ugandan President Amin in the 1970s and some of the outlandish things that happened under his rule (more info here). It’s a good, eye-opening film if you haven’t seen it! Definitely a good choice for a dramatic, historically-based (not rom-com) kind of movie night.
After the movie, we feel quickly asleep after a long fun first day exploring Vancouver. The next day we headed to the Vancouver Aquarium and to see some of the native totem poles in Stanley Park, and I’ll be covering that in the next Travel post!
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