It was a weekend get-away to experience the anglophone Canada, the Canadian Texas and the Rockies. I had spoken with a couple of friends who had recently been to Calgary and Banff and others who’d lived there for some years, to get the most of the few days in Alberta. I did not read anything about Calgary and relied entirely on what my friends told me and I think that was a good thing. Although, when I think about it now…even if I went there without any idea what is going on, I think I would've gotten it. Due to the forest fires in BC the sky was hazy and the visibility was quite poor. In combination with rainy forecast and zillions of tourists that my friends reported visit Lake Louise, we decided not to visit Banff. I would like to visit Banff one day, for sure. But perhaps under different circumstances, in order to keep to my ‘virtual experience’ theory.
Anyway, we stayed mostly in the city. I won’t brag about what you can see in Calgary. Google it. But I have a few observations.
It is amazing how much they can do with so little history. I mean my home village is older than Calgary! Yet they can talk about it as if it was one of a kind and believe me hardly anyone can beat Calgarian pride! #HeritagePark
One can see that there is (or was) a lot of money. The city is about the same size as Prague and there is so much space everywhere that there really isn’t any need to build opulent skyscrapers not many highly populated North American urban areas can beat. (Rumour has it that there is in fact much more office space in Calgary than is actually needed (any more).) Let alone 30+ story residential buildings scattered around the ‘down town’. These are surrounded by so much empty space that one cannot find any reason to buy an apartment in such a monstrous building other than: ‘Because I can afford it.’
Calgary became a real town / city when the first train came from the East. And you can easily see how important it was. It literally cuts through the city and cuts it in half. Anyway, from Calgary Tower I saw the longest train ever. I stopped counting the cars at one hundred. (Thinking of my homeland - if such a train was crossing from Slovakia to Hungary I'm sure its tail would still be in Poland.)
Besides the generic nothingness in the city centre I noticed a certain accent to public space. Here and there one can see a nice functional park, walk or leisure area. It gives the city a lovely blush. These things normally come at a later stage, once authorities realise a city is actually for people. There are quite a few cyclo-tracks around the city center. #PrincesIslandPark
Food. All based on tips by the locals, we went to three places only, but they were very lovely. The Guild; The Beltliner (I hear they own Gorilla Whale, too) and Bow Valley Ranche. Really good food, fair prices and nice service. Will go there again.
Our ride to Kananaskis was somewhat amazing. The first fifty miles there is nothing. And by nothing I mean really nothing. Fields, fields, fields. If you want to see a house you’d better look out! Not easy to spot one. And once you enter the mountains…wow. 3,000+ meters tall and super sharp? That is one thing I really want to do again.
Oh, I would’ve almost forgotten. What we enjoyed an awful lot were our two church visits. The Cathedral with its English hymns and this so-American way of singing full of emotions was so different from Québec. And the other one was the only French-speaking parish in Alberta, Sainte-Famille, where there were six people present with six different French accents (I mean five native French accents and me trying to understand): québecois, franco-ontarien, français anglophone, français haïtien and what I guess was Syrian French (or Middle Eastern for sure).
P.S.: The Texas, i.e. Stampede, happened a few weeks before our visit to Calgary. I don’t think we missed that much.
P.S.: Let's not forget Calgary is an Olympic town. Yeah, that's about it.
