While I was away at my cottage in Ontario this past August, my boyfriend Holden surprised me by booking an overnight staycation at the Fairmont Palliser hotel in downtown Calgary for one Saturday in mid-September.
We were able to get an { extremely } early check-in, around noon, and spent a few hours enjoying the comfortable room (and robes!), watching our show du jour (The Real Bros of Simi Valley), and drinking local craft beer.
Mid-afternoon, we ventured out, grabbed some Lime scooters (sadly this was my first and only scoot this year, after loving them last summer!) and zoomed across the Centre Street Bridge and up to Sought x Found, a coffeeshop in Crescent Heights that neither of us had been to before.
After visiting the coffeeshop, we had planned to check out a new-to-us local brewery called Two Pillars, which we thought was in the area too. Well, as it turns out, Two Pillars was directly beside Sought x Found, and so we wandered right over, from coffee to beer. Holden and I each got a flight, which we sometimes like to do at new breweries so that we can taste a variety of beers. Two Pillars had some very unique + tasty flavours, and we enjoyed a yummy cheese platter as well.
While in Crescent Heights, I stumbled across yet another spot that I’d heard of but wasn’t aware of the location, the Calgary Community Fridge. This is an amazing initiative which aims to bring free, fresh produce and other food + essential items to Calgarians, and it’s located at 902 Centre Street North. Their motto is “Take what you need, give what you can.”, and the fridge, freezer and pantry are open 24/7 for citizens to drop off or pick up items, no questions asked.
After that, we scootered back to the Palliser, checking out some new murals being done in the area as part of the Beltline Urban Murals Project (BUMP) festival on our way.
Back at the hotel, we ordered dinner-via-delivery from Alforno Bakery & Cafe (their Bucatini Carbonara pasta is one of my faves), and then our pal Tony joined us in the room for a few beers before walking over to the Wildhorse Saloon tent (run by the team at neighbouring restaurant Local 522) to catch my sister’s boyfriend’s band, I Am The Mountain, play a socially-distanced concert along with The Varmoors and Free the Cynics.
We made our way back to the hotel, Tony’s wife picked him up, and we watched a few more episodes of our show before falling asleep.
The next morning, we checked out of the hotel at 11 o’clock and drove to nearby 17th Avenue, to spend a few more hours as tourists in our own city, wandering around. We grabbed coffees at Analog and sat sipping them in Thompson Family Park, and then got some poutine for lunch from The Big Cheese (their mac and cheese poutine is to die for).
Reluctantly, we headed back to our respective houses, refreshed from our weekend “away”. This whole staycation thing is definitely something I want to start doing { much } more often! Not only is it a nice break from reality, but there’s so much to see and do in my beautiful city, and this was a cool way to experience lots of new things.