2026 travel plans

[GDSman]

The walk along the Bow river and also Princess Island Park is nice. The area between 2 and 4st SW up against the park, around the Eu Claire centre is good for cafes and a few restaurants. I liked ‘Joey Tomatoes’ on a Friday evening.

Check to see if there’s an ice hockey game on at the Saddledome. Absolutely go to it if you can. Fan engagement (so to speak) puts AFL to shame.

If you are up for a long walk, there is a trail along the Elbow river. Pick it up where 1st St SW crosses it and head upstream.

Stroll around Upper Mount Royal to see some very nice ( big!) houses.

The trams along 7th Ave SW used to be free for the length on the CBD.

Deville coffee in 2nd st SW used to have the best coffee in town

Saltlik a good steakhouse and Charcuterie at Le Germain also good, the latter expensive. 8 th Ave SE, west of 1st Street SE a mini strip of small restaurants.

Bars - I’m too out of date - sports bars are a big thing.

If you’re into hunt’n fish’n and camping then make the trip out to Bass Pro in the north of the city. A temple to all those things and an amazing experience just to walk around the huge store.

This is great @RooFlyer - thanks so much for these tips. I will have Friday late afternoon through till Saturday around 2pm so will try to take advantage of some of these...definitely up for a walk/bite/drink...

 

[VPS]

We're off next week - for 6 weeks in Yewrop (fka Europe ) - 1 week in Malta, 2 weeks in Sicily, 2 weeks in the Dolomites and 1 week in Austria. Flights:

• SYD-CAN-IST on China Southern $3000 pp in J one-way (after cancelling 2 different awards, one on VA/QR and one on TG)
• IST-MLA $400 pp in J on Malta Airways
• MLA-Catania on RyanAir for about $80 pp +++
• Palermo-MUC $800 pp on LH in J
• MUC-SIN-SYD on SQ J award

some excellent spots there - enjoy

 

[Beer_budget]

I fear we will come to regret not booking the intra-European flights earlier. The direct TRD-MUC LH flight has tripled in price (J now cheaper than flex Y), fortunately DL to TRD still cheap and cheerful. Will have to decide what the $$ pain point is before I suck it up and deal with an AMS transit instead.

Will have to start wrangling rellies and firming up the itinerary before it gets any worse.

Too many unknowns in the rellie wrangling, and the cousin near Gatwick is now moving to Spain (!), so pulled the trigger on an LH itinerary, Euro J LHR-TRD via FRA and TRD-MUC on the twice-weekly direct service. Almost $1000 cheaper through Amex Travel than booking direct for a refundable flex fare, cheaper even than a direct Y flex fare, and used my travel credit to book. It's a 9:30am departure from Heathrow so I've also booked the Hilton Garden Inn at T2/3 (it's fine, and very convenient - though a bit of a nightmare to get into by taxi).