Gold lounge breakfast, afternoon tea at Rundle Lounge, town of Banff on Canada Day - July 1, 2013

Trip Index

• Canadian Rockies: Flying into flooded Calgary, Lake Louise in the rain, saloon dinner
• Sunday brunch at Banff Springs, upgrade to Fairmont Gold floor, hiking, fondue dinner
• Gold lounge breakfast, afternoon tea at Rundle Lounge, town of Banff on Canada Day
• Jasper National Park and Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge
• Hiking Cavell Meadows, Athabasca Falls, Wilcox Pass, staying at Crossing Resort
• Athabasca Glacier Ice Walk, Fairmont Lake Louise Gold, dinner at Fairview Dining Room
• Gold lounge breakfast, Lake Louise canoeing, Marcus the Dog, Tea House hike
• C-Level Cirque, Lake Moraine, Calgary Stampede, landing next to Asiana flight 214

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Today was Canada Day, celebrating Canada's "birthday".  There were flags and red and white balloons all over the hotel property.  This morning, we enjoyed the complimentary breakfast in the Gold lounge.  A wide assortment of hot and cold items were available.

hot items

cold selections; appreciated the little bowls of cut strawberries with whipped cream nearby

yummy breakfast

Kaleb and I toured a bit around the Banff Springs Hotel, including the tennis club, horse corral, and the large halls and public rooms.  (We stumbled into not-so-public rooms too, but no pics! :) )  There were indoor and outdoor pools available for hotel guests.  The Willow Stream Spa had great reviews, but there was no time for any services.  I read there was a 5-pin bowling alley on-site, but we did not get around to checking it out.  There was even a "hotel heritage tour" offered by the hotel ambassador, free for guests ($15 CAD for non-guests), but it was held from 3-4pm on Tuesdays through Saturdays; our stay was Sunday and Monday night, and we were departing for Jasper Tuesday morning. :(

get your game on

horseback riding available

one of the grand halls

patio being set up for Canada Day events

For lunch, we had afternoon tea reservations in the Rundle Lounge for 12:45pm on OpenTable (another 100 points!).  The meal was all right; it was definitely not as grand as the afternoon tea we had at Claridge's in London (read about it here).  But the view was excellent!

table with a view (and watched a lady getting sunburned on the patio below)

jars of loose leaf tea on a trolley

tea timer

somehow tea still got through the filter

scone with jam and cream was delicious but the strawberries seemed to have been cut hours ago

tower of the usual treats

Afterwards, Kaleb and I walked about 15 minutes down Spray Avenue to the town of Banff (or for a $2 CAD fare, you could take a public bus which comes around every 40 minutes).  The sun was blazing...definitely needed sunscreen today!  There were many souvenir shops and eateries.  The sidewalks were jam-packed with tourists; it may have been more crowded due to Canada Day.  Central Park was filled with booths selling arts and crafts, along with carnival-type attractions.  There were also two booths serving up free "birthday" cake for Canada Day.

crowded Banff sidewalks

booths in the park

Instead of walking back up Spray Avenue to return to the hotel, we decided to do the Bow River Trail, which had a lot of shade to stay cool.  It meandered along the bank of the Bow River.  There were benches here and there if you wanted to take a break and stare at the fast-moving river.  The trail ended at the top of Bow Falls.

seemingly calm, but there are warning signs for the falls ahead if you're in the water

3-second Zoe video of the swift waters (I wouldn't want to fall into that):

rainbow in the mist

We returned in time to enjoy the evening hors d'oeuvres in the Fairmont Gold lounge.  The selections were so filling that we ended up cancelling our dinner reservations at Castello, the hotel's Italian restaurant, which had very good reviews.  Interestingly, spending the money to upgrade to the Fairmont Gold floor helped keep our costs down.

tasty bites including pork belly

local ale

Tonight was our last night in the historic Banff Springs hotel.

The next morning, we had breakfast in the lounge.  It was nice to see that some of the offerings changed a bit from yesterday.  I liked that everything was served in small quantities.  The little dishes were replenished often.

I'm happy to have strawberries again!

sausage and pancakes today

baked goods

After breakfast, we packed up and set out onto the Icefields Parkway towards Jasper National Park...stay tuned!

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