Vancouver

Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind. 
                                                                ~Seneca
I was looking through some photo files of our trip to Alaska and realized that it was exactly one year ago that we made this wonderful trip.  I had just recently started this blog and when we returned from our trip, we were dealing with Dudley's illness for two weeks straight, so I really didn't share much of this fantastic trip. 

For a number of years we kept hearing from so many people that "you just have to go to Alaska" and "it's just so beautiful", and on and on.  When Mr. Cottage and I were working, the thought of going to Alaska really didn't interest us.  After all, we lived in Michigan where the summers were short enough and the last thing we really wanted to do was to spend some of our summers in another cold place.  After we retired and started spending our winters in Florida, the opportunity to take an Alaskan cruise came along and we just couldn't resist it any longer.  The ship was going to set sail out of Vancouver, Canada so we thought we should fly in a few days early and spend a little time in the city.  Some friends of ours recommended a great B & B for us to stay in that was located right in the heart of the city, called O Canada House... 

If you ever go to Vancouver, I would highly recommend you check this out.  Mr. Cottage and I were able to walk every where we went and the staff and food was wonderful. 

Everyone suggested we go to Grandview Island.  So we walked to the dock and took the water taxi across to the island, which has an unbelievable farmer's market...

There just happened to be a jazz festival taking place on the island while we were there.  The next day we walked around downtown and to the other side of Vancouver where the marina and O Canada Place is located.  The city is awesome, as are it's people...

We continued walking right over to Gastown, where we saw a steam clock that is a world attraction.  You can find more information about this clock by clicking right here...

There was so much more we wanted to see and do but we only spent a few days there before our cruise ship left.  The photo below shows the city and O Canada Place as we set sail on our Alaskan adventure.

I'll share a bit of our Alaskan travel tomorrow.