Vancouver: A Very Welcoming City

A New Favorite Hotel and Perhaps a New Favorite City

When we made our plans for visiting this lovely city (which we had visited in 2014 for a professional conference), we chose the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, falling in with the Fairmont chain just as we had done for Toronto and Victoria.

And as I say, Vancouver is a very special place. Even when we were here eight years ago we found ourselves particularly taken with the friendliness of the people, the cleanliness of the city, and the overall look of what seems to be a healthy prosperity in the city’s downtown. Perhaps it has to do with the size of the city, for Vancouver’s population is only a little over 650,000 people in the city proper. It’s also recognized as a very livable city (and no, we’re not going to move to Vancouver).

Certainly Vancouver provides a different kind of “city life,” and there is also a lifestyle that is very attractive. For us, we love where we live, and we are often caught up with how many people say that New York is a fine place to visit but they wouldn’t want to live there. We’re just the opposite. Wherever we go, we find ourselves in places that are fine to visit, but we probably would not want to live there.

That’s pretty much the case for these New Yorkers visiting Vancouver. Our hotel, Hotel Vancouver, is located right in the heart of the city (and like other Fairmont properties, it’s just generally referred to by its original name, the Hotel Vancouver). Another of the many Canadian Pacific Hotels built in the first half of the last century, Hotel Vancouver is both grand and welcoming.

The hotel was designed by Canadian architects John Smith Archibald and John Schofield and construction started in 1929, but because of funding issues (not surprising at that time in history), it was not completed until 1939. Like many of the other “railway” hotels, Hotel Vancouver has that typical “Chateauesque” look found throughout Canada but this one also incorporates several Renaissance architectural details such as gargoyles and relief sculptures, as shown here.

Yet there is more to appreciate than just the hotel. In other “postcards” we’ll share some thoughts about other points of interest in Vancouver, such as the city’s harbor, some of what we’ve learned about Northwestern Ocean Art (and the places where it is shown), and some of the city’s special architecture.