Impressions of Vancouver and Canada - Canada Travel Story

Vancouver is a gorgeous cosmopolitan city, there's a lot to see and immense skyscrapers all around the city centre. Although as you know I'm not very fond of big cities, I have to say that the more I stay here the more I like it.

We've been to all the typical tourist traps, the Museum of Anthropology, the Aquarium, gorgeous Stanley Park with its totem pools and black squirrels, we've been been to beautiful Granville Island - which has a huge food market, beautiful little art shops and a pond with looneys swimming about - and had a quick glimpse of Chinatown. Got lost in a couple of immense shopping centres and enjoyed jazz music on a small patch of grass in Downtown, as the Vancouver International Jazz Festival was on.

Munched at huge and really tasty smokey hot dogs, increadibly cheap pizza slices (99 cents, which is less than 50p!!), and sushi. Also, for practical reasons and because I couldn't fit a hairdryer in my trolley, on day 3 had my hair cut short by a Korean hairdresser. In the past couple of days I had to take it a bit easier, I've had a flu and serious back and leg pain for the many miles I've walked... My body has to get used to the huge spaces here.

The weather has been changeable, with only a couple of really sunny days, which I've spent lying on Jericho beach. On 1st July it was Canada Day, so huge festivities all around town and everybody had a red leaf tattooed on their cheek. Yesterday had the best day ever exploring North Vancouver, which you can reach by seabus - my favourite means of transport along with the skytrain. Went to Lynn Canyon park and walked on a suspended bridge and then through a breath- taking tropical forest bordered by a river. There was a natural pool at the end, with children jumping into the freezing water from the rocks, absolutely stunning.

Also went to the cinema one evening to see the beautiful "March of the Penguins", which I recommend. It's about love and survival in the coldest region on earth. Tomorrow I'm heading towards Vancouver Island (Nanaimo first, then Victoria and Tofino), flu permitting. I'm already 3 days behind schedule, so I have to get going now and leave Vancouver, otherwise I'll end up staying forever. If you ask me whether I would live in downtown Vancouver my answer is: NO. But if you ask me whether I would live in a little green and white wooden cottage in North Vancouver, bordered by huge fir trees, with tanks of maple syrup in my kitchen cupboard and a gorgeous naked park ranger in my bed, the answer is:

Definitely. Random impressions: Canadians are big, especially men, they have big faces on big bodies - and they don't seem to notice me (maybe because I'm half their size?) In Vancouver here are no bus timetables at bus stops and you never know how long you will be waiting for or which buses are going where, but the city is divided in grids, and as soon as you get that (the bus either runs north-south or east-west and viceversa) the city is at your feet.

Maple seems to flavour everything: you have maple-flavoured tea, coffee, biscuits, chocolate, toffees. I wonder whether they also sell maple-flavoured condoms... People seem to be concerned about water supplies and how not to waste water, but Vancouverites don't pay a cent for it, plus I've never seen so many fountains and water features around (even at the airport, in shopping malls, just everywhere). Highlights of the week: having a giant blue butterfly sit on my hand at the tropical section of Vancouver Aquarium and being attacked by a raccoon who wanted my maple-flavoured ice-cream (no way!).