I’m sitting here doing two of my favorite things: writing and eating. And I’m eating one of my favorite things: macaroons. The obsession continues with no end to it in sight. These little delicacies were bought at Bon Macaron Patisserie in the Granville Island Public Market. Yummm!

So I’ve been in Vancouver just over three weeks now and have just under a week left to enjoy one of my favorite places in the world. And now that I’ve had so much time to explore and discover so many new areas I didn’t get to see during my previous trip here, I know that one of my favorite parts of Vancouver is North Vancouver and more specifically, Deep Cove.

North Vancouver, not to be confused with the City of North Vancouver, is a district municipality, and Deep Cove is a community in the easternmost part of the district. It’s also where I spent my first week here.

My parents, my best friend, Teresa, and I arrived on a Friday, and after driving to the Vancouver Convention Center to pick up our race packets for the BMO Vancouver Marathon (you can read all about the marathon here) it was time to carb up in preparation for our race! 😀

I was SO excited to be able to experience Vancouver again, this time with my parents! I’ve not really travelled much with them before so it was so much fun exploring this city that I love and the surrounding area with them. Although I think I wore them out just a bit and they probably needed a vacation to recover from their vacation. 😛

I had emailed our Airbnb host prior to arriving to ask for restaurant recommendations where we could enjoy a good pasta dish, and one of the places she recommended for big plates of pasta at reasonable prices was The Old Spaghetti Factory. It is located in Gastown, only about a ten minute walk from the Convention Center. Walking along the streets of Vancouver brought back so many memories of when we were here before! I loved it! After our meal, it was on to Deep Cove!

When booking accommodations for trips, I’m always a little nervous about how different my expectations are (based on photos and reviews) compared to reality. But I needn’t have feared this time around because our Airbnb accommodations in Deep Cove were absolutely perfect!

Evening view from our accommodations…sigh

Large, bright, clean, within walking distance to the village, and with a perfectly perfect view! We couldn’t have been happier. And our hosts rocked, too!

We were all exhausted once we had settled in a bit (three hour time difference!) so we called it a night soon after arriving.

The following day, we all woke up early (three hour time difference!) and walked to the village to check it out. Oh my goodness. I need to live here. We all instantly fell in love with this place! The views, the quaintness, the great cafes and boutique shops, and the absolutely perfect weather didn’t hurt either! Clear, blue, cloudless sky with temperatures in the upper 50’s. Heavenly!

My photographic ode to Deep Cove

Our first stop was Cafe Orso where we checked out the menu and my Dad bought a chocolate croissant. And thus started a bit of a chocolate croissant obsession for him. If we went somewhere that sold chocolate croissants, he bought one. I think he had one just about every day he was here! But he claims his favorite was from Cafe Orso (he had three from there). Ahhh, like father, like daughter – it must be our French heritage. 🙂

We visited Honey Doughnuts & Goodies and each bought one of their famous doughnuts which we ate while walking along the water and through the woods.

Since Teresa and I had to run 26.2 miles the next day (!), we decided we probably shouldn’t do too much walking so we headed back to the house after awhile. This meant quite the uphill walk climb as the street we stayed on was really steep! Great butt and thigh workout though! 😉

Once back at the house we hopped in the car and headed into the city. Teresa and I had wanted to drive the marathon race course so we would have an idea what to expect the following day. A few things we noted: 1) driving this course takes just about as much time as running it (maybe a slight exaggeration, but still); 2) we were going to be running through some beautiful scenery; 3) there are a lot of hills (this is most definitely not Florida); and 4) this course is LONG!!! I mean, we knew it was 26.2 miles but when you drive it, you realize just how long that really is! Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea…

We stopped for lunch halfway through and grabbed pizza from Rocky Mountain Flatbread Co.. Teresa and I had eaten here during our previous visit to Vancouver and I was excited to return!

After finishing our marathon by car, we headed to Stanley Park. I absolutely love Stanley Park and could probably spend everyday here. We took a horse-drawn trolley ride through the park and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a great way to leisurely see the park and learn some of its history along with some history of Vancouver. Our tour guide was great and kept us entertained with his humorous commentary.

Bottom right: we were given a huge, wool blanket for the tour which made the ride nice and cozy 🙂

And we made a quick stop at the totem poles at Brockton Point. This is actually the most visited tourist attraction in British Columbia. What?!? Of course, Teresa and I had to put our own special photographic stamp on the area. 🙂

This was the first time I drew a crowd while mimicking a statue. It was a bit disconcerting…

As much as I wanted to explore more of the park, we needed to head back to the house to get dinner started and get us runners to bed at a decent time. 🙂 The following day was our amazing marathon and once that was behind us, we could really start exploring this awesome city!