We arrived in Calgary around 11:45AM, picked up our luggage an went to the car rental center, all very easy. There was a relatively long line-up at Budget, and it moves slowly, so it took about half an hour. Everything was fine with our Budget reservation. They tried to get us to buy insurance, as usual (declined).
We found our car and took some time to familiarize with it. I also asked directions o the Budget attendant on how to head for Canmore, which he explained nicely, except that there is lots of construction in Calgary and.. we missed our exit.
No problem, we have a GPS, we thought! Then we found out the 2nd problem, the new roads in Calgary are not in the GPS maps yet. Our GPS kept telling us "recalculating" and showing us in the middle of fields. In other words, we got lost.
Eventually we found our way in the old TransCanada highway (highway 1A, "Crowchild Trail") , which ends up being Bow River Rd, which would take us straight to Canmore. Both 1 and 1A run parallel to each other. 1A is a nice road, quite scenic, but with lots of little turns by the end. This is the road with the really, really long downhill section. After about 1 hour of this we deicded we had had enough and took a exit to the real Highway 1.
Canmore Accomodations: Mystic Springs
Arrived in Canmore around 2PM. As check-in time is 4PM, our room was not ready, so we headed for "downtown" Canmore, had a light lunch at a Subway. By the way, our Subway points card does not work in Alberta.
Headed back to the hotel around 3:45PM and got into our room.
The room is actually a 2-bedroom townhouse, plus living room, dining room, kitchen, fully equipped, very nice. Mystic Springs also has a heated outdoor pool, which we took advantage of to relax.
Mystic Spring is rated 3.5 starts. I would actually give it 4 or 4.5 stars.
Banff
Around 6PM we headed for Banff, which is about 15-20 minutes away, stopping first at the park gate to buy the annual pass.
We parked the car fairly easily in downtown Banff (free parking) and explored the beautiful Cascade gardens, and just walked around main street, where all the tourists are. Weather was fine, sunny about +18C.
View from Cascade gardens towards downtown Banff.
We also visited the Bow River falls, just a short walk or drive from the gardens..
View opposite the falls.
We headed back for Canmore around 7:30PM, bought our groceries at the Safeway supermarket. This included the night's supper, breakfast for the following two days, as well as supper for the next day.
View from highway, Canmore to Banff
Groceries
Prices at the supermarket are about 20-30% higher than in Ottawa. There is also an eco fee for quite a few times such as bottles and a lot of other stuff. Supposedly you an get these fees back at some depot on "industrial" road. Forget it, no time...
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