Mon 1st - Calgary to Banff

Hotel: Fairmont Banff Springs

Labour Day in Canada today we had an early start as last nights alcohol did me no favours. We also still didn’t know the arrangements for leaving today so rang the concierge and was told to be outside for 7.30 so it was just as well we got up early. You can guess what is coming now yes the concierge got it wrong so after rushing down breakie and get our bags packed, Owen the tour guide rang and let us know it was a 10am start and to have bags outside the room for the bellboys to collect. The lobby had 3 or 4 different groups waiting for departures and the average range as expected was about 60. The seats on the bus had already been selected for everyone so no good seats good be nicked by us early starts!

Today’s tour is Calgary to Banff we had a couple of photo stops along the way but we were in Banff for lunch with a couple of hours to ourselves to wander around the shops. For lunch we stopped in a Swiss steak and cheese fondue house. We had a fantastic cheese fondue and chicken hot stone it was out of this world. They even stocked a locally produced range of ciders - Chris as expected had pear while I had black cherry. We liked it so much we went to the liquor store to get some for the hotel.

Before being shuttled to the hotel we had a little sightseeing tour or the river and the view of the hotel from the opposite side - cue lots more photo opps.

The hotel itself is definitely one of the more grander the room we had was huge but didn’t get much of a view. We had another wander into the town before tea. The town itself is quite like a big version of Keswick I think I think this because of the backdrop of the mountains from the main street and the abundance of mountain clothing shops. After trekking round most of these stores we even managed to get Chris his Northface jacket - although not identical to the one he’d seen it was just as good.

Tea was ok Chris tried the bison as this had been recommended by the rep and I had a game platter which had quail, venison and elk. By far the best was the elk and I‘ll be having this again if it‘s on anywhere else. Unfortunately we were too full to sample the pudding buffet but it did look nice.