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Spanish Banks
There are some stunning views from this beach on the north side of the peninsula: you can wave at the giant freighters moored in Burrard Inlet or just sit back and watch the city and distant West Vancouver slowly fade in the setting sun. Recalling the early arrival of Spanish explorers in the region, the British - who arrived later but eventually won control of the area - named the waterfront after them.
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Steam Clock
The much ballyhooed steam clock halfway along Water St is a silly little landmark, though its charm is that it's the only one of its kind in the world. Misleadingly historic looking, it was built in 1977 to resemble London's Big Ben.
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Sunset Beach
A chain of small, sandy beaches running along the north side of False Creek, this is where West Enders come to hang out and catch some rays, many of them lounging on the grassy banks overlooking the waterfront. The walking, cycling and blading trail here - it links to the Stanley Park seawall trail if you want extend your trek - is always packed in summer, often with members of the local gay community checking each other out.
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UBC Botanical Garden
A haven for green-fingered visitors, this 10,000-tree, 28-hectare plot near the corner of West 16th Ave comprises eight separate gardens, including Canada's largest collection of rhododendrons (plus some lovely blue poppies), a 16th-century-style apothecary garden and a winter garden of plants that bloom outside springtime.
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University Town
Although surrounded by undeveloped waterfront and enjoying a verdant, tree-lined location, the UBC campus - complete with 44,000 students - is a bustling, building-packed minicity. If you have the time, it's worth a day out from downtown since there's plenty to do here and lots of easy-to-find lunch and coffee spots. Consider a free walking tour to get your bearings.
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Vancouver Aquarium
Stanley Park's biggest draw, the aquarium is home to 9000 water-loving creatures - including sharks, dolphins, Amazonian caimans and a somewhat shy octopus. There's also a small, walk-through rainforest area full of birds, butterflies and turtles. Check out the iridescent jellyfish tank and the two sea otters that eat the way everyone should: lying on their backs using their chests as plates.
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Vancouver Art Gallery
Once a disappointing regional gallery with nothing more than a clutch of Emily Carr canvases to recommend it, the VAG - housed in an old courthouse but rumored to be moving to a new downtown location soon - has dramatically transformed in recent years, becoming a vital part of the city's cultural scene.
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Vancouver Lookout
Expect your lurching stomach to make a bid for freedom as one of the two glass elevators here whisks you 169m to the apex of this needle-like viewing area. Once up top, there's not much to do but wander around and check out the truly awesome 360-degree vistas of city, sea and mountain panoramas unfurling around you.
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Vancouver Maritime Museum
The final member of the triumvirate - it's a five-minute walk west of the Vancouver Museum - this library-quiet attraction combines dozens of intricate model ships with some detailed recreated boat sections and a few historic vessels. The main draw is the St Roch , a 1928 Royal Canadian Mounted Police Arctic patrol sailing ship that was the first vessel to navigate the legendary Northwest Passage in both directions.
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Vancouver Museum
One of the three well-established educational attractions clustered together in Vanier Park, the Vancouver Museum recounts both distant and recent city history. It includes some colorful displays on 1950s pop culture and 1960s hippy counterculture - a reminder that Kits was once the grass-smoking center of Vancouver's flower-power movement.
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Vancouver Police Centennial Museum
Colorfully charting the city's murky criminal past, displays at this excellent little museum include an autopsy room with pieces of damaged body parts posted on the wall (note the brain with a .22 caliber bullet in it) and an exhibit describing how to determine a corpse's age via insects (blowflies appear in 15 days, cheese-skippers in 40 days).
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Vancouver Public Library
This spectacular, Roman Colosseum-like building must be a temple to the great god of libraries. If not, it's certainly one of the world's most magnificent public library facilities. Built in 1995, it contains 1.2 million books and other items spread out over seven levels, all of them seemingly populated by language students silently learning English from textbooks.
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Vandusen Botanical Garden
Vancouver's favorite ornamental green space, this 22-hectare idyll is a web of paths weaving through 40 small, specialized gardens: the Rhododendron Walk blazes with color in spring, while the nearby Korean Pavilion is a focal point for a fascinating Asian plant collection. There's also a fun Elizabethan maze, walled by 1000 pyramidal cedars, and an intriguing menagerie of marble sculptures.
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Vanier Park
Winding around Kitsilano Point and eventually connecting with Kits Beach, waterfront Vanier Park is more a host site than a destination. Home to three museums, it's also the evocative venue for the tents of the annual Vancouver International Children's Festival and the summertime Bard on the Beach Shakespeare extravaganza.
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Waterfront Station
Opened in 1915, this handsome, multicolumned heritage building was originally the old Canadian Pacific Railway station and the western terminus for transcontinental passenger trains. These days it houses an array of offices, cafes and shops, and acts as the main link between SkyTrain and SeaBus transit services (the West Coast Express commuter train also rolls into town here).
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West 4th Avenue
A strollable smorgasbord of stores and restaurants may have your credit card whimpering for mercy after a couple of hours here. Since Kits is now a bit of a middle-class utopia, shops where you could once buy cheap groceries or grow-op paraphernalia are now more likely to be hawking designer yoga gear, hundred-dollar hiking socks and exotic (and unfamiliar) fruits from around the world.
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Whytecliff Park
Just west of Horseshoe Bay, this is an exceptional little park right on the water. Trails lead to vistas and a gazebo, from where you can watch the boat traffic in Burrard Inlet. The rocky beach is a great place to play, go for a swim or scamper over the large rocks protruding from the beach. The park is also popular with scuba divers.
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Wreck Beach
From the intersection of NW Marine Dr and University Blvd, follow Trail 6 into the woods then head down the steps to the waterfront for Wreck Beach, a microcosm taste of what makes Vancouver unlike almost any other North American city. You'll find an undeveloped, log-strewn, 7.8km beach surrounded by a hulking forest that makes you feel worlds away from the city, yet downtown is only 20 minutes away.
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