Magic Alberta- Sep. 2017

Hello everyone!

It's been a while since my last post! At the beginning of September I went on a trip to Canada, through Alberta and British Columbia. This journey was amazing, since I had the chance to be in the wild nature, away from big cities (except from the beginning and ending of the tour, in Calgary and Vancouver respectively). Our trip started from Calgary, of which we had a quick overview on the first day. Raised as a city of ranchers and oil commerce, Calgary is in the center of plainfields and at the feet of Rocky Mountains. Frankly it's not the best city I've ever seen, but its atmosphere tells us much about the western costumes and way of living. The morning after our landing in Calgary, we went 50 miles south to the nice western town of High River, home of the TV series Heartland. Starting our tour namely from Maggie's Diner on 3rd Street it seemed to me to be into the show and part of the American life we see in films. After a quick bite in St.George's Park, we visited the local museum: there we found out the importance of that part of America to Natives , who also nowadays run reservations in the area and let tourists visit them.

After our stay in High River it was time to start the tour on the Rocky Mountains. We headed north- east, along the Bow River. Following the river's course, we took pictures of nice mountain lakes at the feet of the mountains. We had lunch at a ranch in Kananaskis Region before heading to the nice town of Banff, in the heart of the Rockies. Before arriving there, the first Canadian jewel was revealed to us: Lake Louise. This place is magical and the colour of its water is almost unreal! We did not know that this was only the first amazing-blue lake that we would have seen.  Banff welcomed us with a sparkling atmosphere, the town was full of Canadians and tourists on holidays and it was quite picturesque. This corner of Canada was our gate to Jasper National Park and Athabaska Glacier. 

Our journey continued in west direction, heading to British Columbia and Shuswap Lake. During the long bus ride to our destination, the main element which accompanied us was...smoke. Indeed, during our stay there were almost 150 active and controlled fires in the area, whose smoke tinted the sun red. This was quite uncommon and the feeling was to be on another planet! Once got to Shuswap Lake, the Native Reservation welcomed us with a magic sunset on the lake and Natives told us their stories and sang their songs at the fireplace. 

The day after it was time for us to go back to modernity and city, heading to Victoria Island. This Island is located in front of Vancouver and it's a hour boat ride from the coast. On Victoria Island we visited the colourful Butchard Gardens and the town center, which reminded London and England's coast. Our trip was coming to an end, with our last stop in Vancouver. This city, even if it is a metropolis, is very tidy and organized- this was worth a three-days stay. In Vancouver we had a 11 km walk to discover its main places, like Canada Place, Granville Island, Stanley Park, its bridges and happy quarters. Moreover, we attended a group for  whale watching and actually saw them - this was amazing! Our last view of Vancouver was Capilano Suspension Bridge, which helped me to face my fear of height! 

Before flying back to Italy, we had a quick day trip to Seattle as well: being on the Pacific Coast we could not help to visit the city where Jimi Hendrix and grunge music were born! Pike Place Market, the Gum Wall, the original street and quarter were a nice surprise to discover.

This post was intended as an overview of this amazing journey, which I'd like to tell more in details in the next posts. So many experiences, so many places that words (not always ) can tell.

In this case FB and Instagram can help, showing a lot of pictures of this adventure...I'm working on video editing 😉

Camilla