August 30, 2025
- hfalk3
- Sep 5
- 3 min read
Banff, British Columbia, Canada
It is a beautiful morning. The weather on this trip as been amazing. While the nights tend to be cool the days have been sunny and warm. This morning, I went out for a nice walk, took a roundabout way to Starbucks so that by the time I got back to the hotel I had managed to cover a full 3.5 km. On the way back to the hotel I did manage to spot an elk enjoying a morning snack on some flowers in front of the hotel net door to ours.
This morning some of the group is going on the optional helicopter excursion, we opted out of this. Sounds a bit too touristy. Instead we walked around Banff a little, stopped into the IGA supermarket and got some things for lunch, and headed back to the hotel. It is really quite beautiful here, if you could get rid of all the tourists it would be a great place to vacation. We had lunch in our room and just after it has gone noon we headed down to the lobby to take the motor coach tour around Banff.
The first park of the motor coach tour covered the downtown we had walked. Then we drove a little out of the downtown area to the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel.
Banff Springs Hotel is one of Canada's grand railway hotels built by Canadian Pacific Railway. The present hotel property is made up of two main buildings, an eleven-storey tower, and the main block of the hotel. Designed by Walter S. Painter, construction for the tower building, or the centre wing, began in 1911, and was completed in 1914. The main block of the hotel was erected from 1927 to 1928, and replaced the original wooden hotel destroyed in a fire in 1926. The original structure was a five-storey wooden building, able to accommodate 280 guests, was designed by Bruce Price. On 24 June 1988, the hotel buildings were designated as a National Historic Site of Canada.
The Canadian Châteauesque design features elements of the châteaus of the Loire Valley in France, steep pitched roofs, ornate dormers, and gables make for an beautiful building. Unfortunately, non guests and tour motor coaches aren’t allowed on the grounds. We were able to do a drive by which was on its own impressive. However, I think it is going to take stay here to satisfy our curiosity about the building.
After driving by the hotel, we went down the hill below the hotel and visited Bow Falls. This is where the rapids scene was filmed in the 1954 movie “River of No Return” staring Marlyn Monroe and Robert Mitchum. Part of that movie was also filmed at Lake Louise.
Afterwards we drove up Buffalo Street and the base of Tunnel Mountain on the opposite bank of the river. We ended up at Surprise Corner Viewpoint overlooking the falls and the Fairmont on the other side of the Bow River. We continued up Tunnel Mountain drive and stopped at a couple more lookout spots. The views are spectacular. After that we continued down Tunnel Mountain Road back to the hotel. Almost enough nature for the two of us.
After a short nap we walked into town for dinner. Tyler had recommended a place called the Keg, so we made reservations on Open Table and headed there for an early dinner. The Keg is a classic steakhouse. My dinner started with “mushrooms Neptune”; mushrooms caps, crab and cream cheese. Great texture and flavor, but not a lot of crab flavor.
Mary started with a shrimp cocktail and followed it with prime rib. I went for the peppercorn New York, a good stand by for me. We skipped dessert and headed back to the hotel. Tomorrow is a 500 km drive to Kamloops through Glacier National Park. So we again stopped at the IGA supermarket and picked up some snacks for the road. There really aren’t any planned stops other than scenic overlooks and the like. Lake Louise early in the morning being the only real get off and walk around stop.
Because of the change in schedule, we didn’t stop at Lake Louise on the way down to Banff, we are going to start the day a little earlier, 07:00, instead of 08:00. Knowing this we decided to go to bed a little early.
Buonanotte e Ciao,
Enrico e Maria
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