By Fred Delkin

Folks here on the northwest left coast too often fail to realize that a rather exotic foreign destination is but a short drive up the freeway. 

The worth of British Columbia’s capitol was affirmed recently by Conde Nast publishing’s Traveler magazine which proclaimed it the "Best City in the Americas"...a designation covering North, Central and South Americas. The award considers ambience, friendliness, cultural sites, restaurants, lodging and shopping.

Furtrher certification of Vancouver’s value has been provided by the International Olympic Committee, which named the city as the site for the 2010 Winter Games. If one watched the 2006 Winter Games closing ceremony televised from Italy, you saw a masterful welcome to the world stage by the B.C. Olympic officials.

We’ll all have to wait a few months before even getting information on hotel
and event ticket reservations for the February 12-28 2010 Games. But 
Vancouver beckons now as an ideal spring 2006 destination. The marine climate is warmly mild, maintained by salt waterways and bays lapping the city from three sides. Even more welcoming is the fact that unlike visits to Europe or elsewhere in the USA, our dollar still exceeds the worth of its Canadian counterpart.

Terrific for the tummy, too!

Dining in the Vancouver area is reason alone to drive up here. The sea’s culinary bounty is unexcelled and the Fraser River valley just east of town is an agricultural bread basket. Canada has practiced an "open door" immigration policy that has lured skilled chefs and restauranteurs of every ethnic persuasion. Downtown Vancouver abounds with establishments representing our planet’s widest variety of cuisines. Don’t miss Granville Island, this city’s harborside equivalent to Seattle’s Pike Place Market and a dispensary of all that is fresh and good in native victuals.

Few settings on earth can match Vancouver’s. Any doubts will be erased if you take a city bus to Grouse Mountain, towering just behind west Vancouver, and take the tramway to the top, where you can survey sea and forested shores laid at your feet.  We also fondly recall a 12th floor room we occupied at the Pan Pacific hotel in downtown which had a balcony where you could view a transportation panoply that included cargo ships, water taxis and a rail complex below your feet amidst a harbor and mountain backdrop.  Stanley Park on the seaward edge of city center is a scenic complex of spring foliage and a world apart from urbanity. Spend a weekend with Vancouver and you’ll know you’ve enjoyed a city with few earthly rivals and only a matter of a few driving hours away from Oregon or Washington. 

U.S. visitors to the nation to our north need to carry a passport, not to satisfy Canadian customs officials, but to assure acceptance by U.S. border officialdom when you return. A driver’s license used to be sufficient, but no longer, since terrorism struck our shores.

© 2006 Oregon Magazine