Fort Langley
On each trip to Canada we need to balance our desire to explore new territories with our constraint of a limited number of vacation days and our wish to visit friends & host families that live in well known areas. As of this trip we added the constraint that we'd not drive more than 4 hours per day in the car but leave plenty of time for our little Kabouter to be outdoors. As a result our itinerary for this vacation was almost exclusively along familiar roads. Fortunately the beauty of British Columbia never tires, so that was ok.
Yet it remains fun to find new exciting stops & visits to explore along the way and the National Historic Site of Fort Langley was one of these. After picking up our rental car in downtown Vancouver in the morning of day 3 of our vacation, we stopped at this historic fort just 45 min outside of the city center.
In contrast of my mindset that the lower mainland is full of unattractive busy /sleeping suburbs for Vancouver, Fort Langley still preserves the character of a picturesque village in the shade of its many trees with some wineries at the edge of town. The fort itself isn't very big to fill the entire afternoon with a visit (as most forts aren't) but the nice weather and a few lovely coffee shop/lunch places just outside of the fort made us stay nevertheless a few hours in this town. Our pace on this vacation was quite mellow anyway :p.
Little Kabouter bravely took interest to walk the place rather than being strolled around, which was the first time. Having the freedom to run around along the buildings with exhibitions, to discover the farm animals in the far corner of the site and to test some gold panning (read: to splash wildly in the water), kept his interest alive in this most western historic Hudson Bay's company trade post & fort where the province of British Columbia historically has been proclaimed.
In contrast of my mindset that the lower mainland is full of unattractive busy /sleeping suburbs for Vancouver, Fort Langley still preserves the character of a picturesque village in the shade of its many trees with some wineries at the edge of town. The fort itself isn't very big to fill the entire afternoon with a visit (as most forts aren't) but the nice weather and a few lovely coffee shop/lunch places just outside of the fort made us stay nevertheless a few hours in this town. Our pace on this vacation was quite mellow anyway :p.
Little Kabouter bravely took interest to walk the place rather than being strolled around, which was the first time. Having the freedom to run around along the buildings with exhibitions, to discover the farm animals in the far corner of the site and to test some gold panning (read: to splash wildly in the water), kept his interest alive in this most western historic Hudson Bay's company trade post & fort where the province of British Columbia historically has been proclaimed.
After Langley we drove off again towards the next city where my Canadian sister Lisa lives with her family and little boy a couple of months older than our Kabouter. so my prediction less than 2 years ago came true: our boys could finally meet, hang out and play together at the local playground while we could spend precious time together reconnecting again. And the good thing was that we'd not have to say goodbye yet, as we'd stop by again on our way back to Vancouver at the end of the trip!
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