Vancouver: Seaside Bicycle Route, Hinge Park, Stanley Park

Vancouver is a wonderful city for urban exploring, biking, public art, parks, and experimental foods. It is easy to wander for a weekend, week, or more and still have lots left to explore on a follow-up trip. The cityscapes, public open spaces, waterfront, and surrounding mountains provide beautiful backdrops for all the activity around every corner.

The Seaside Bicycle Route circumnavigates the shores of False Creek in downtown Vancouver. Given the potential commercial and residential value of the land taken over purely for public access and parks, it is quite an impressive and well orchestrated creation. The paths are wide open for biking, walking, jogging, and sitting on a bench to read a book. Public art, grass picnic areas, museums, cafes, and more are directly accessible all along the long route.

One hidden gem near the Seaside Bicycle Route is Park Site at Southeast East False Creek, aka Hinge Park. The urban park is a cohesive expression of taking back a previous industrial site, creating water basins to filter pollutants from surrounding storm water runoff, and then forming a public art and playground space for the local progressively designed community to enjoy. Exploring the paths and water views are fun, and in the summer there is an interactive water pump that runs down troughs to feed the basins below.

Stanley Park is deservedly known as a world class urban park, comprising 1,001 acres of forest, lake, play areas, open space, hiking trails, and biking trails along a waterfront seawall. It is easily accessible from within the city. In addition to the outdoor activities, there are educational exhibits and indoor educational facilities to explore as well.

Also highly recommended are the night food markets. They are a fun experience for buying many small portions of inexpensive yet tasty and unusual foods. The Chinatown Night Market offers good food, live music, and pretty views out over False Creek and around Vancouver. To the suburban south, the Richmond Night Market is quite the culinary party and has quite the eclectic mix. It attracts many thousands of people on weekends to what is otherwise an expanse of huge, bare, vacant dirt. At night, over a hundred food and stuff/junk tents spring up amidst a backdrop of glaring lights, music, and bustling crowds. Try weird foods and have funky desserts to your heart’s content, plus pick up some bizarre little imported gadget.

Vancouver also has interesting neighborhoods filled with grand and well kept old mansions, counterbalanced by urban stretches with funky shops and hole-in-the-wall eateries. Lots to explore, and all well recommended.