VanDusen Botanical Garden is a very popular attraction amongst tourists, and in the 10 years I have called Vancouver my home I have never visited VanDusen... until now. (Well I am writing this post 3 months late as you can tell from the CHRISTMAS lights haha)

Starting around 2 weeks before Christmas and continuing for a couple weeks after Christmas, this annual tradition transforms VanDusen Botanical Garden into a dizzying explosion of lights.  In my humble opinion the Christmas lights @ VanDusen Garden is VASTLY superior when compared to the lights at Stanley Park & Capilano Suspension Bridge combined! (plus it is 3-4x less expensive VS Capilano).  We are definitely going to make VanDusen Christmas Lights an annual tradition for my household as well!

A word of advice... it gets extremely busy so parking might be a little bit of a problem.  

This entry is part of "France: From Paris to the Riviera" series...

We kicked off our honeymoon in the romance capital of the world (Paris), spent a few days in the relaxing Provence countryside... the last portion of our honeymoon was by the Mediterranean Sea: Côte d'Azur aka the French Riviera.

This entry is part of "France: From Paris to the Riviera" series...

We kicked off our honeymoon in the romance capital of the world (Paris), spent a few days in the relaxing Provence countryside... the last portion of our honeymoon was by the Mediterranean Sea: Côte d'Azur aka the French Riviera.

Due to the amount of pictures/words this entry is posted in 2 parts

This entry is part of "France: From Paris to the Riviera" series...

We kicked off our honeymoon in the romance capital of the world (Paris), we then traveled to the middle of France and found ourselves immersed in a completely different atmosphere...

This entry is part of "France: From Paris to the Riviera" series...

Paris has long been considered the romance capital of the world... so what better place to kick off our honeymoon?

Due to the amount of pictures/words this entry is posted in 2 parts

This entry is part of "France: From Paris to the Riviera" series...

Paris has long been considered the romance capital of the world... so what better place to kick off our honeymoon?

Due to the amount of pictures/words this entry is posted in 2 parts

Introduction:

Two years after getting married my wife and I finally found time to go on a proper honeymoon! The decision to choose France as our honeymoon destination came naturally as France offered everything we would appreciate in an adventure: Legendary cuisine, excellent variety of photographic opportunities, and of course being the romance capital of the world (I know it’s a cliché, but why not go for the gold?).

On our 16-day adventure we wanted to spend at least a week in Paris since this was our first time visiting France, and spend the rest of our time “sampling” different parts of France at a relatively leisure pace (we wanted to smell the roses too!). Cote d’Azur (French Riviera) emerged as an ideal second destination because it combined relaxation with an excellent public transport system. Upon departure our itinerary looked like this: Paris (7 days) -> Avignon area (2.5 days) -> Nice (5 days) -> return to Paris for our flight home (we did not have a daily itinerary because getting lost had led to many amazing surprises throughout our travels in the past).  Unlike our trip to China, my wife's semi-fluent French turned out to be an extremely important asset.

AND… For the first time ever instead of staying at hotels we rented private apartments for both Paris and Nice… as for Provence… we opted to let fate decide our fortunes.

1 day whirlwind visit in August

I have always considered Seattle as Vancouver's twin because these two cities are so close geographically from each other (~2 hours by car excluding the border wait).  In typical northwest fashion Seattleites are polite, laid-back, and generally fit (who can blame them? Northwest's natural beauty = outdoor activities).

I have been to/through Seattle many times before but I have never "toured" around the city (like many Vancouverites, Seattle's existence was purely for cross-border shopping... until now).  With the entire northwest enjoying a history-setting fantastic summer, and the Toronto Blue Jays coming to Seattle... Seattle here I come!

The annual Persied's Meteor shower was all over the news and since I didn't have to work the next day I decided to try photographing the meteors! To be completely honest I have never been a fan of night photography because 1) I don't get to sleep, 2) A dark piece of sky is required (need to go somewhere far away?), 3) It requires a lot of post-processing...

It turns out there is a nice piece of real estate called Porteau Cove (only 45 minutes from Vancouver) that is popular amongst night photographers.  When I arrived there were SO many photographers... It was tough getting a spot!

The light pollution at the bottom right is from the town of Squamish (near the Stawamus Chief!), and the Sea-to-Sky highway traffic could be seen from the bottom right as well.