Chic Robson Street (website:
www.robsonstreet.ca) offers fashion boutiques, souvenir and specialty shops and, bizarrely, a fair number of Cuban cigar emporia. Yaletown (website:
www.yaletowninfo.com) is the shopping ground of Vancouver’s young and aspirational, with designer fashions, art galleries and trendy home decor shops. Other popular areas include Gastown, Chinatown and Granville Island, with its wonderful public market (see
Key Attractions).
Indoor shopping
Downtown includes the
Pacific Center, Royal Center and the
Sinclair Center, while
Metrotown is a large suburban mall (with 500 shops and food outlets) connected to the SkyTrain station of the same name. For outdoors enthusiasts, the stretch of Broadway between Ontario Street and Cambie Street is a must -
Mountain Equipment Co-op, 130 West Broadway (website:
www.mec.ca), is the best known of the clutch of sporting goods stores here.
When it comes to souvenir shopping, vacuum-packed British Columbia smoked salmon is a popular, easy-to-carry choice. The most original gifts, however, are Pacific Northwest and Inuit arts and crafts - soapstone sculptures, carved masks, totem poles, pottery, jewelry and prints. Galleries worth visiting include
Circle Craft, an artists’ co-operative (website:
www.circlecraft.net) and
Eagle Spirit Gallery (website:
www.eaglespiritgallery.com), both on Granville Island,
Coastal Peoples Fine Arts Gallery, 1024 Mainland Street in Yaletown (website:
www.coastalpeoples.com), the well-respected
Marion Scott Gallery, 308 Water Street (website:
www.marionscottgallery.com), or one of the other galleries on Water Street in Gastown. Lovers of international contemporary art can try the
Buschlen Mowatt Galleries, 1445 West Georgia Street (website:
www.buschlenmowatt.com), or, more uniquely, can take longer to decide if they like a piece - works curated by the gallery hang in the rooms of the Listel Vancouver Hotel, 1300 Robson Street (website:
www.listel-vancouver.com). South of Downtown, there are more than a dozen galleries on Granville Street between Fifth Avenue and 14th Avenue (website:
www.southgranville.org). The
Arts and Cultural Guide to British Columbia (website:
www.art-bc.com) provides more listings.
Shops are generally open Monday to Saturday 0930/1000-1800 (until 2100 Thursday and Friday) and Sunday 1200-1700. There is a non-refundable provincial sales tax (PST) of 7% in addition to the 6% federal Goods & Services Tax (GST). Please note that as from April 2007, foreign visitors can no longer claim a rebate of the GST paid on goods that they take out of Canada.
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Word Travels is a comprehensive travel guide covering hundreds of cities and holiday resorts in more than 125 countries.
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The Columbus World Travel Guide has been published for 26 years and is sold in over 90 countries worldwide.
Word Travels is a comprehensive travel guide covering hundreds of cities and holiday resorts in more than 125 countries.
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