Banff: Day 3

I’m back with the next part of what’s been an amazing trip to Alberta, Canada! TL;DR - it’s been the best getaway I could have hoped for! Be prepared for LOTS of photos. I can’t get enough of these gorgeous mountain views! 

Day 3: Biking to Banff

A friend of Amber’s recommended that we bike from Canmore to Banff as there is a dedicated bike trail. So we got to the bike rental place when it opened at 9 on Tuesday and were on our way. It’s about 15 miles each way and the views are stunning! 

We stopped a number of times to take pictures and exchange ‘can you believe these views??’ comments! 

Amber caught some photos of me on my bike!

About 2 hours later, we biked into Banff! We obviously were not looking to set a record in terms of pace. ;) 

Biking into Banff! 

Banff is probably the busiest ‘mountain town’ I’ve been to. But the central area is closed to vehicles which really helps as it would be even more congested otherwise! One super cool thing is that they have a free bike valet! You just drop your bike off and they give you a tag to pick it up. We were supposed to get a bike lock with our rental but at about the halfway point of our bike ride to Banff, we realized the guys at the rental place didn’t give it to us! 

We were pretty famished so got on the wait list for a spot with a 45 minute wait and swung by a cafe with GF goodies for something to tide us over until we sat down for lunch. Oddly my stomach has been off while traveling lately. I’ve getting nauseated quite often. This happened in California, too. I think it’s a combo of dehydration and not eating regularly enough? My body is so used to eating like every 3 hours (toast for breakfast, yogurt and berries 2 hours later, then lunch 2 hours later, then popcorn a few hours later, etc). So I’ve been trying to drink water more often and have food on me at all times on this trip so I can eat more frequently. 

After a yummy brunch meal, we shopped for a bit for our families and I snagged a cute hooded sweatshirt for only $30 Canadian for myself! I really only have 2 hooded sweatshirts and could use another. Kae and Kyria, I thought of you and your love of sweatshirts when deciding to buy it. I pretty much heard you ladies say: buy the sweatshirt, Lisa! So yes that means I am having imaginary conversations with blog friends in my head! Ha!

Next we hopped on our bikes to bike along the Bow River and up to the bougie Fairmount hotel which has a rate of $1,600CAN/night! The water in this mountainous region of Alberta totally reminds me of New Zealand. I spent a week on the South Island of NZ when I studied abroad in Australia in 2002. The Banff area is the only comparable area that I’ve visited. I’ve never seen water this color anywhere else besides NZ and on this trip! The blue/green color is so stunning! I’ve done a lot of hiking in Colorado and haven’t seen anything like this in that region of the Rockies - which don’t get me wrong is also gorgeous! 

We biked up to the Fairmount hotel and Amber asked a valet person if we could look around. I fully expected to be told NO but the guy was so nice and even offered to store our bikes while we had a look around. We grabbed a snack at an on-site cafe and sat out on the patio to rest our legs for a bit. Then it was back on our bikes for the bike back to Canmore! 

Heading back to Canmore

At about the halfway point it started to POUR! I was glad I had purchased and packed a nice rain jacket for this trip (I got a great deal on a Gortex rain jacket at REI last week). It got quite a bit of use! The bike ride back was slightly down hill and we biked quite fast once it started raining so it only took 1.5 hours to get back. 

We were pretty spent by the time we got home so we showered and grabbed some take-out pizza. We had plans to leave the Airbnb by 6 the next morning so we could get to Lake Louise before it got crowded. So we called it an early night!