Memories of "Van"

I’M IDLY flicking through various websites, as you do. I glace at some of the weather sites for Vancouver, British Columbia - when we were out there last May, the mountains behind the city still had several feet of snow on them. Surely, in view of the weather we’ve been experiencing, here in dear old Blighty, it must be even worse out there. But no, it seems not, it’s much the same really – rain and freezing temperatures, by turns. I recall we had quite a bit of rain during our stay, too, although these wet days alternated with blisteringly hot ones.

Memories of Vancouver – “Van” the locals call it – led me to look up the hotel where we stayed, and I’m pleased to see it’s still there and appears to be thriving. The Wedgewood Hotel on Hornby Street, in downtown Van, really is a grand old place, full of overstuffed, comfortable furniture and with original oil paintings on the dark, wood-panelled walls. The bar and restaurant, there, are definitely two of the city’s “in” places, where on any given evening the well-dressed like to be seen wining and dining; on the other hand, there was nothing snobbish about the location, nothing that made My Good Lady and I feel uncomfortable or out of place, notwithstanding the pair of scruffs that we usually are. Maybe it’s a testament to the warmth and friendliness of Vancouverites, and of the west coast Canadians generally (I can’t speak about other parts of that vast country.

Other abiding memories of Van include the city art gallery, where we first discovered the work of Emily Carr, of historic and slightly sinister Gastown and the oriental splendours of Chinatown, and my long day of pushing MGL in her chair around the full circuit of Stanley Park – about eight miles in all! (I definitely earned my pint of beer in the hotel bar on that day!)

The one criticism I have of the city is the number of tramps that you encounter, and who loiter in considerable numbers in the vicinity of the posh, very expensive, designer shops and restaurants in and around Robson. I saw one literally on bended knees, hands together in supplication, begging passers-by to drop something into his upturned cap. The aggression with which some of these vagrants approached people was a little alarming compared with our own politer-seeming down-and-outs. I know you are advised, as a visitor to a foreign country, not to give money to beggars, but had one of them actually approached us, I’m not sure I could have obeyed this injunction.

This aside, we really enjoyed our visit to Van, especially when we recognised scenes from TV series like The X Files and Highlander. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll get the opportunity to go back there.