First, you come to Coco e Olive on Main for the food: the peppery cheese and fresh herb scones, the  roasted tomato, goat cheese and basil quiche, the buttery shortbread. Do not even bother trying the goat cheese salad, unless you want to develop urgent cravings at inopportune times. If you

When I worked at the Marine Building, one of my favourite lunch walks was down through the edge of Gastown to those two blocks of Cordova that house quirky, interesting, local stores. First stop was always the highlight: Salmagundi Antiques. Merriam Webster defines salmagundi as ‘a heterogeneous mixture’ or ‘a salad

For those who are visiting Vancouver for the first time, Southlands can come as quite a surprise. There, down the hill from Southwest Marine, are horses and miniature ponies clomping about the streets. Busy barns, unassuming bungalows and gigantic mansions front bales of hay and riding rings. Southlands Nursery has

Mount Pleasant has become a creative hub over the last few years, home to multiple galleries, acting studios, Hootsuite, Gener8 and the Sarah McLachlan School of Music. Long-established Vancouver fashion designer RozeMerie Cuevas has her 8,000 square foot flagship studio on 5th and Columbia. On the facade of her building, you’ll

It now sits across from La Quercia, the much-feted Italian restaurant on 4th. After all these years, I still don’t know what it’s called. The facade says: Art Glass – Stained Glass and Doors. Another sign says: ‘We do all repairs.’ I have no doubt that this is true. Nine,

Behind some of the city’s most inspiring sites sit teams of volunteers working quietly to keep things beautiful. The amazing Aunt Hilde – when she wasn’t beetling around town in her red Nissan or traveling the world solo at 90 plus – would spend hours at VanDusen Gardens, tagging plants and

If you visit Vancouver for even the shortest of tours, you will probably hear something about lions: the West and East Lion peaks on the Northshore Mountains and the stately concrete lions who stand guard at the Lions Gate Bridge. The Lions who guard the Gate were carved by Italian-born sculptor Charles Marega in the 1930s.

Situated at the highest point in Vancouver, Queen Elizabeth Park offers spectacular views of the city and is free for the wandering. You will find painters and photographers a-plenty, moving from one spot to another, looking to capture the best views. And the views are spectacular: across the city, over

Two Christmases ago, Mum and I were reminiscing as we rifled through Dad’s extensive library. Deep in one of the back-shelves, I found a little black binder of B.C. postcards postdated from 1908 into World War One. Mum and I figured that these could be mementos from ‘Dad’s’ (Dad’s Dad’s) friends or treasures

When you see the mad eyes, the raised knife, the marbled slab and the Gulliver hands, you might reasonably assume that you have veered off into Knockturn Alley. Not so, they say. This is, rather, the King Edward and Main building of a popular butcher’s shop that has been operating in Vancouver