Watching the Flames in Calgary

Calgary was our last port of call in Canada before we headed into the States. It was the venue for the 1988 Winter Olympics, the home of the Calgary Stampede and where the Calgary Flames strut their stuff. Add in a large city centre, some nightlife, a few museums and a business district and we thought we couldn't go wrong.

Our Calgary experience didn't start that well. The RV park was about 15 kms from the city and it seemed to be full of people that lived there on a full time basis and didn't really like outsiders. Nevertheless, we bedded in for the night in the RV and made plans for the next day.

We were woken by the sound of the park's cockerel making all sorts of noises as well as the starting up of motorhomes as people began to leave for work. We decided to cut our losses and head out into Calgary. This was a bit of a chore as we could either fork out $50 on a taxi, or $20 on a taxi to take us to the nearest train station. We opted for the latter, which took about 30 mins to get into town, where we went to the nearest hotel to ask for a few hints and tips on what we should get upto.

We had 2 tickets for the Calgary Flames on Tuesday night which we needed to collect from the box office at the Pengrowth Saddledome, which was right next door to Stampede Park. Even though it was raining, we decided to walk it. I have heard really good things about Stampede Park. It's a venue that hosts all sorts of events such as the Calgary Stampede, music concerts, exhibitions and musicals. There was nothing happening while we were there, but the whole place and looks like a lot of fun! After a wander, we collected our tickets and headed back to the city centre.


The main tourist area, or Downtown as it's known, is all pedestrianised. There are loads of shops, bars and clubs that you would expect to find in every city. We took our time walking up and down to see if there was anything different about the city. Sadly there was not.

Out last activity of the day was to visit the Glenbow Museum, a rather famous museum with a load information and artifacts about Canada's history. But for us to have to visit a museum once again highlighted that there just wasn't that much to do.

So it was time to head back to the RV park and catch up on some X-Factor.

Tuesday arrived and we were quite excited to be going to watch an ice hockey game. Ice hockey is massive in Canada, with most games selling out. We had a plan to train into town, take a ride up the Calgary Tower, head into Kensington and visit Chinatown before having a few beers in the "Red Mile". This is where all the hockey fans meet prior to the game.

Calgary Tower was disappointing. It's not even the tallest building in Calgary. It did have a glass bottomed area though, which you could stand on and see 180 foot down, but that was pretty much the highlight.




It was time for beers, so we headed to the Red Mile, chose our sports bar and settled in. Our friendly waitress poured our beers and informed us that she doesn't expect that the Red Mile will get busy tonight as the game is a 7.30 kick off. That didn't dampen out spirits though, and we sank a few more beers, a basket of chicken wings and a burger before following the crowds to the game.

We both really enjoyed it, and unlike other American sports I have been to, I actually followed most of it. The bits it didn't really get were the 1000's of random substitutions that take place every 5 seconds and the lack of cheerleaders, but other than that it was great.

A few more beers during the game meant we were done, so we headed back to the RV for the night.

Cazzie and I both decided that Calgary was one of our least favourite cities, maybe we have been spoilt being able to visit so many different and amazing places, but Calgary wasn't one of them. Maybe we were just unlucky with the weather, the RV park and the time of year.

The pictures can be found here, using a new site called SmugMug - cheers bro!

Stuoobs
xxx