Seeing some familiar faces

Sunday 8th September

We were pretty impressed with ourselves managing to sleep through from 9pm to 6am having expected worse with jetlag!

We got up and ready and packed our suitcases up as we were checking out of our current Airbnb to move to a new one for our remaining 3 nights in Vancouver, closer to the city centre.

We checked out and ordered an Uber to take us to Hugo and Charlotte’s apartment to meet them ready for our day together.

It was lovely to see their friendly familiar faces! We went in and saw their lovely flat and they took us up to the rooftop to see the view, which was amazing!

We then walked with them to a local cafe called Red Accordion where they had booked for brunch. We had a good catch up over some delicious food – the last time we had seen them was at our wedding (and we hadn’t been able to chat much then for obvious reasons)!

We then walked to a local bike rental shop as Hugo and Charlotte had planned for us  to hire bikes for the afternoon to cycle round the Stanley Park Seawall (all the way round the water front of Vancouver), which they said was the best way to see Vancouver – and they weren’t wrong! We had a lovely time cycling round chatting and admiring the views from the bike, especially as it was a lovely sunny day!

Charlotte told us to keep an eye out for seals and not long after I spotted one sunbathing on a rock!

It got quite warm in the afternoon so we of course had to stop for ice-cream! We stopped at Earnest ice-cream which is their favourite and it was delicious!

We then got back on our bikes to continue our cycle and followed Hugo and Charlotte to Granville Island. We stopped and locked up our bikes to wander round the amazing market where you can find just about any food! We tried some yummy free samples…

We continued on our cycle all the way round back to the bike rental shop having cycled roughly 30km (taking in more views along the way).

We then left Hugo and Charlotte for about an hour to go and check into our new Airbnb before meeting up again for dinner.

Our new apartment was in a very tall block of 27 floors of flats, of which we were on floor 7 thank goodness!

We freshened up and then got picked up in an Uber by Hugo and Charlotte and went to  a restaurant they had booked called Zarak – and Afghan restaurant that they had been to before and said was really good. The food was delicious and the service so good! The food was all sharing style which we love doing anyway…

After dinner we got an Uber back to our apartment and got an early night as we were pretty pooped. But we had had such a lovely day with Hugo and Charlotte!

Monday 9th September

Harry and I were spending a day just the two of us today as Hugo and Charlotte had work. We woke up early again and decided to go for a morning run along the water front to run off some of yesterday’s food. It was quite quiet still with us being up so early.

We showered after our run and then went to Angus T bakery, recommended by Charlotte, for breakfast pastries – they were delish!

We then decided to go for a walk through Stanley Park, as we had cycled all the way round it yesterday but not through the middle.

We walked all the way to the top of Prospect Point lookout where there were some lovely views.

We then stopped at the cafe at the top for a drink.

We continued on our walk back down through Stanley park but a different way down.

We then walked to an outdoors shop to buy some bear spray and a water bladder for our upcoming hikes! We walked past a couple of sporting landmarks/venues…

We then headed back to our apartment to rest for a bit after walking 24km in total!

When we started to get hungry we went back out, heading for a pizza place that Hugo and Charlotte had recommended (Parlour). They do amazing pizza but it’s an odd place as it’s more like a bar/club blasting out music, so we opted for taking it away back to our apartment. It did not disappoint!

We watched a bit of TV with full tums full of pizza and then hit the sack.