Tired of Stanley Park? Try Coal Harbour

VANCOUVER, B.C. — Every time I come to Vancouver, I get a bad case of shoreline envy.

Somehow the city has managed to preserve about 15 miles of its seashore in public beaches and waterfront walking and biking paths. And it's creating more waterfront access all the time, including in the heart of downtown with a paved path and grassy parkland along Coal Harbour.

It all began in the late 1800s when Vancouver's forefathers had the good sense to create the 1,000-acre Stanley Park on the downtown peninsula. What's called the Seawall path eventually was built around the park, a six-mile paved walking and biking trail. With its forested backdrop and views of mountains and sea, it's a magnet for visitors.

On this recent visit, I broke out of my happy Stanley Park rut to explore nearby Coal Harbour. It wasn't a big stretch — Coal Harbour's ¾-mile paved walking and biking path adjoins the Seawall on the east side of Stanley Park.

The Coal Harbour walk is a shorter, more urban route than the Seawall, with wonderful views of the city's main Burrard Inlet harbor, where freighters and cruise ships come and go, and of the cityscape and 4,000-foot mountains that edge Vancouver. There are several good places to eat along the way and, in summer, a free public water-play park where kids can splash and spray each other in fountains.

The Coal Harbour walkway is bordered by a series of linked mini-parks that create a grassy swath between it and high-rise condos that have mushroomed here in recent years (developers pay for much of the parkland, thanks to tough zoning laws). The harbor itself is off Burrard Inlet, and partly filled with a marina of gleaming white yachts and floating fuel stations.

IF YOU GO

Coal Harbour

Where

Coal Harbour is in downtown Vancouver on the south shore of Burrard Inlet, the city's main harbor, and adjoins the east side of Stanley Park.

Getting there

The easiest landmark is the Westin Bayshore Resort, which borders Coal Harbour; the path runs past the hotel with the bulk of the walkway to the east. There is street parking or pay lots near the Westin (1601 Bayshore St., just north of West Georgia Street, a main downtown thoroughfare); walk north to the shoreline path.

• Cardero's restaurant is by the Westin hotel; the Mill Marine Bistro is a few blocks to the east (at the foot of Bute and Cordova Streets).

• From hotels around Robson and Denman Streets, in Vancouver's West End area, it's about a 10-minute walk to Coal Harbour.

More information

• Tourism Vancouver: 604-683-2000 or www.tourismvancouver.com

• Vancouver Board of Parks: 604-257-8400 or www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/parks/

(Harbour Green Park is one of the mini parks along the Coal Harbour walkway.)

A few funky houseboats and workboats hunker among the pleasure boats, a hint of Coal Harbour's bygone days of fish boats and shipyards, wharves and freight sheds.

That past is evoked by an unusual artwork along the Coal Harbour walkway. Called LightShed, it's a half life-size sculpture of an old-fashioned, weather-beaten shed perched on pilings. It leans, as did the dilapidated wood sheds that once lined what was an industrial area before luxury housing, offices and parks took over. (Burrard Inlet, however, remains a major working port, with grain elevators, rail yards, freighter docks and massive yellow mounds of sulfur, on a dock across from Coal Harbour, waiting to be loaded onto ships.)

Coal Harbour's path dead-ends for now at a massive construction site near the swooping, sail-like roof of Canada Place, the city's main cruise-ship dock. A new convention center is being built there; the path eventually will skirt it and continue east beyond the Canada Place pier on the downtown waterfront.

Coal Harbour isn't enough of a walk to work up a big appetite, but it didn't stop me from indulging at Cardero's (1583 Coal Harbour Quay, 604-669-7666, www.vancouverdine.com/carderos). The upscale restaurant sits on pilings above the marina, a big woodsy room with picture-window views across the harbor. It's a place for fish, from oysters and mussels to tuna and salmon (although lamb, burgers, salads and more also are offered).

If it had been sunnier and warmer, I would have eaten outdoors a few blocks east at the more casual Mill Marine Bistro, named after a long-gone sawmill that once stood on the shore of Coal Harbour. Tables are scattered around a patio near the children's water-play park. Or find a spot in its cheerful pub-like interior for comfort food including clam chowder, pizza and sandwiches (1199 West Cordova Street, www.millbistro.ca), 604-687-6455).

Whether you're eating or strolling along Coal Harbour, seaplanes are a constant backdrop, scooting in to land and take off on private and commercial flights. They have a long history here, and a Seattle connection: Boeing established a Coal Harbour factory in 1929, near where the Mill bistro now stands, to build "flying boats" and other seaplanes — and a luxurious yacht for company founder William Boeing.

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