Tasteful Voyages™: Oh Canada! Our Bucket List Trip with Rocky Mountaineer

Enjoying the views from the open-air platform onboard Rocky Mountaineer

Rich and I are just back after a bucket list trip to Western Canada with Rocky Mountaineer.

What's Rocky Mountaineer? Their tagline is "truly moving train journeys" and after this experience, I must agree. I first learned about Rocky Mountaineer several years ago at a travel conference, and I've wanted to do this trip ever since. We booked more than two years ago - and after several reschedulings of our journey, we are so thankful that we were able to do this! In our case, we started in Calgary, then went on to Lake Louise, Banff, Kamloops, and Vancouver - with stays at Fairmont Hotels (except for Kamloops.)

Rocky Mountaineer packages luxury train travel segments with hotels and tours in some of Western Canada's most spectacular locations. There are lots of choices with respect to travel style - a trip can be almost all luxury, with "Gold Leaf" 2-level observation and dining car service, coupled with stays at historic Fairmont Hotels - or "Silver Leaf" service with alternate hotels and meals served at the seat. The train portion of the trip is supplemented with coach tours in each city along the way. With passengers coming and going on multiple itineraries, I must admit that I am in awe of the logistic prowess of this company!

Not ready to leave the US quite yet? Rocky Mountaineer has launched an all-US product with tours between Colorado and Utah, utilizing their Silver Leaf Cars.

This article is taking the form of a photo journal - it's my hope that this gives you a sense of our experience. Are you interested in a trip like this? Let me know; I'd be delighted to help you plan. Please contact me at joan@tastefulvoyages.com - and if you have an idea of when you'd like to travel, please include that information.

Cheers! and Enjoy!!!

Our first two days in Canada were in Calgary; we stayed at the lovely and historic Fairmont Palliser Hotel. We had dinner in the rotating restaurant at the summit of the Calgary Tower.

On our drive from Calgary to Lake Louise, we stopped at several scenic spots - including these "hoodos" - the odd rock formations in the center of this photo.

We stopped at Bow Falls, and they were beautiful - but the view opposite the falls was stunning!

We arrived at our beautiful hotel - the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise - this was the view from our room. We were surprised to find that Lake Louise was still frozen over - with folks walking on the ice sheet!

At Lake Louise's Swiss inspired restaurant, I ordered the "Clarified Cosmopolitan" made with white cranberry juice - the glass was dusted with a mixture of sugar and ground dried cranberries. Delicious!

The next day we set out on the Columbia Icefields Highway, named one of the world's most beautiful drives, parts of which are called "Glacier Alley." Highlights included a walk on the Glacier Skywalk.

The Athabasca Glacier itself is surrounded by several peaks, many with glaciers of their own. The glacier has been steadily receding; it's estimated that it may last another 75 years.

How did we reach the Glacier? In this custom vehicle called the Ice Explorer!

That evening we had dinner in the beautiful Fairview Dining Room - these large picture windows framing the awesome scenery are legendary!

Our next hotel was the Iconic Banff Springs Hotel - it's said that when Queen Mary first spotted this hotel during a 1934 visit, she exclaimed "Wow" - and to this day this vantage point is called "Surprise Corner."

We had a half day excursion to Jasper National Park - this spot, called the Natural Bridge, is one of the most beautiful nature scenes I've ever seen.

We had some leisure time built into our trip and had a lovely morning stroll through downtown Banff.

The Banff Springs Hotel offers many different activities - I opted for a mixology class and learned to make the signature cocktails from the Fairmont hotels in Banff, Lake Louise and Jasper.

After 6 nights at three beautiful and historic Fairmont Hotels, it was time to board the Rocky Mountaineer for our 2-day journey to Vancouver!

We booked the "Gold Leaf" service featuring comfortable heated seats in an upper level glass domed rail car. The dining area, for breakfast and lunch, is on the first level of the carriage.

I spent most of my time gazing out of the windows at the spectacular views

The train hosts have a small food prep area on one end of the passenger compartment; during the day passengers are offered coffee, tea, juices and a selection of adult beverages - and lots of snacks.

Shortly after leaving Banff, we passed this marker indicating a Continental Divide - a point at which waters to the east of this spot flow toward the Atlantic, while waters to the west flow toward the Pacific.

The engineers are really great wildlife spotters; they alert the train hosts who in turn shout "Bear on the Left!!!"

Bear #2 - (We did see a mama bear and two cubs but I was not fast enough to snap the photo. It lives in my memory!)

We rolled past the aftermath of an avalanche - the power of nature is incredible!

The Spiral Tunnels are a railway engineering feat - an ingenious way to reduce the grade for train safety. The Rocky Mountaineer is the only passenger train to go through these tunnels.