Next day climbed the snow-covered trail (5.5km along and 700m of up!) to Sulphur Mountain. A clear blue sky and fantastic views from the top. Lots of people take the cable-car up and we took it for the descent as the trail was quite icy in places.
We headed north towards Jasper, stopping for a walk alongside Lake Louise which all the brochures show as turquoise but was still frozen white. Then 230km along the stunning Icefields Parkway, surrounded by huge mountains and glaciers, all the while in glorious sunshine.
Passed a black bear feeding by the roadside. Found our stay in Jasper (the Seldom In, highly recommended) and went for a beer in T-shirts as it was really warm.
Our one full day in Jasper we spent doing a series of short walks in lovely places including Maligne Canyon, then lunch at Medicine Lake which sits on top of a vast cave system which takes all the water when things freeze in the winter, so was empty. Maligne Lake 30km away was still frozen
and we walked a snow-covered trail up to Moose Lake. Really like Jasper, more country than Banff.
Drove Jasper to Calgary stopping to watch a black bear and her cub (who was up a tree). Up early next day to catch the Greyhound bus across the Rockies to Vancouver which was long (15hrs including lots of stops) but super scenery. Mostly mountains and snow until we hit Vancouver where all was green and flowers were out for spring.
It's May holiday weekend in Canada and start of their holiday season so quite busy, but we caught bus-ferry-bus to Victoria at the south end of Vancouver Island. It's a very pretty ferry ride through the islands. Did some sight-seeing and watched some super street-theatre. Victoria is quite laid-back and pretty, flowers are out and the sun shining.
Sunday morning and Victoria was full of music as Monday is the big Victoria Day parade and all the bands were practising - brass bands, marching bands, jazz bands and a jazz choir - and the sun still shone. Then back to Vancouver which is a surprisingly long way!
Three nights in Van-city, which would probably have been better to spend one more in Victoria and one less here. But an interesting walk around along the very informative harbour front, then via Gastown to Chinatown and a replica Chinese garden which was superb. Vancouver has a great setting like many major ports but the mountains at the back make a difference.
And then disaster - Icelandair cancelled our flight from Vancouver to Paris with less than 48 hours to go! Opodo only work UK hours, so we spent the morning rescheduling transport, fortunately there was a flight available only a day later. Trying to call Opodo the next morning was a nightmare, so after hanging on for 15 minutes we gave up. Won't book through them again. So an extra day here, then home. An exciting end to the trip.
Yes, it was good, scenery superb, accommodation expensive and we finally found some reasonably priced wine. Favourite places were Quebec, Jasper and Victoria - but we'll probably never come back: too many other interesting places we haven't been yet!
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