Vancouver Day 2: Granville Island

As I look back on past posts I've written, I have a tendency to add in a lot of research with our personal experiences to make the place come to life. 

Granville Island also appeared on the bloggers' recommendations of places to see while in Vancouver. I made the mistake of referring to the island as separate from Vancouver. It is part of Vancouver. With that clear, What is Granville Island?

In the 1970's Granville Island was an industrial wasteland. Today it is a cultural hub expanding from the public (farmers') market located at the dock to a mix of shops, a theater, at least one brew pub. As with the rest of the city, it is highly bike-able, though there are many signs both reminding to mind the railroad ties; I wonder how many cyclists took a header before the signs were installed. 

The Public Market's roof is being renovated, which only means it was closed on Mondays in January. There are 50 businesses inside the market. Overall, there are 300 businesses on Granville Island employing over 3,000 people.

The most fun part for me was taking the ferry over. I was a little nervous about this ferry. The ferry to Vancouver Island is very expensive, takes 90 minutes, has a set schedule, there is room for your car. Somehow I imagined the ferry between downtown and Granville Island a really big deal. I could not find a schedule for it. I was a little concerned as we walked to the pier. 

This is what we saw:

I think I laughed when I saw it putter across the water. The three-minute (?) ride is $4.50 one way ($3.25 US), or $8 ($6 US) round trip. They also offered an all-day ticket that hops over to other locations for $20 ($14 US). We talked about coming back to take advantage of that ticket. Instead, a few days later we took it one way and walked across the bridge on the way back. The aquabus runs continuously. There really is no schedule.

From the aquabus we saw six industrial silos painted with artwork. Very eye catching. After walking through the Public Market we headed to see them up close. The art is called Giants.

The artist's statement: "Every city needs art, and art has to be in the middle of people," OSGEMEOS. OSGEMEOS searched for the right place to display their vision in 3-D.

We noticed a lot of public art in Vancouver showing the city embraces their message.

More pictures from our first visit:

Loved the signs reminding people to lock their bikes

We came back a few days later and took the big bridge over from Burrard Street Art Deco style bridge. Built from 1930-1932 it is a steel truss bridge. The walk across would have been shorter, but there was construction in the area next to the bridge making us walk a few more blocks to get to the span. The aquabus is much quicker. As we were staying on Burrard Street, this took us within a few blocks of our hotel.