Hello Blogettes!
I had an amazing trip a couple weekends ago to Galiano Island! Galiano Island is part of one of the Southern Guld Islands in BC and it was absolutely beautiful! It was a tiny little island and was incredibly small town. For a city girl like myself, it was a pleasant change and a lovely weekend getaway.
My friend Linda and I stayed at the Galiano Inn and took advantage of their "Girlfriends Getaway", I believe it was called. It was a pretty wicked deal. We got to stay there for 2 nights, had breakfast included both days (well, one day was credited to our account because the kitchen was only open weekends), a complementary bottle of champagne and chocolates, as well as 2.5 HOURS at the SPA!
Day 1:
We left for the island bright and early because there are only 2 ferries that take us to the island each day. One is super early in the morning and one in the evening. Since we got there around 9:45am, we decided to walk around and do some exploring before we checked into our room. We just walked around and explored. They have a cute little "downtown area", as I would call it. It literally consisted of one grill/ice cream restaurant, one dine in restaurant, a cafe/bakery, and just some boutiques. It was so quaint. I'm telling you, it's so small town that the cafe's operating hours were from 7am-3pm. Yeah, I know. I wish those were my work hours everyday too.
I took a butt ton of pictures over the weekend. None of them can truly encapsulate how beautiful the island was but I'm hoping they can give you a rough idea.
The above is a panoramic view of a lake we came across just from walking around. We went down to the dock and I'm just in awe of how beautiful and serene it all was.
After some more exploring, we checked into our room around 11:30am after we grabbed a light breakfast. This was the view from our balcony:
I would like to wake up to that everyday, please.
After relaxing and a short work out (yes, I worked out during my holidays. I'm proud of myself, too), we headed down to the Madrona Del Mar spa, which is part of the resort. We got to do a 60-minute flotation therapy, which was, to be honest, a mediocre experience for me. I think that it would have been different if Linda and I didn't share a room because I honestly had to step out of the room before our time was up due to the fact that I was so. HOT. It was pretty fun to just float in the water though, I would have thoroughly enjoyed it if I hadn't gotten so hot. Anyways, after that, we had a 30 minute steam session, which was a perfect lead up to our 60-minute massage session that followed it. To be honest, the massage was the thing I was looking to the most. It was amazing... and not quite long enough! They never are though, eh?
Day 2:
Okay, so aside from the massage, this was the one thing I really wanted to do this weekend: hike Mount Galiano. I'm not a big hiker, but after this trip, I think I have converted and found a new love. You do it the view, I tell ya.
We managed to hike up early so there weren't too many people around. There was literally just one couple on the mountain with us when we got there so we got to just sit on the edge and take in nature's beauty. I think we had the best timing because as we were finally deciding to head back down, there was a mob of people at the top. "Nailed it," I thought to myself.
Day 3:
On the last day, we checked out after having breakfast and just wandered around. Foolish us didn't take note of the business hours so we missed out on buying little knick knacks for our fam jams. That's okay, they were totally understanding because it was so small town that there really wasn't anything worth splurging on. I just bought a post card to add to my collection as I normally do.
We had a bunch of time to kill before our ferry home so what else to do but another hike? We decided to hit up Bluff Park.
Not gonna lie, it was a weird hike. There was the option drive up so we ended up hiking through the trails but eventually ended back up on the main road and walked up the slopes. That was kind of lame and took away from the experience but the view made everything a-OK.
How do places this beautiful even exist?! Humans really do a number on our beautiful earth. I love getting to go 'random' places within province and explore. We couldn't have been luckier with the weather we got. I even got a slight sunburn on my shoulders, and I rarely burn. We didn't anticipate such sunny weather so we didn't pack any sunscreen (tsk tsk). At the end of the day, it was totally worth it. I got my first tan of the year and awesome memories.
If you ever want a quick getaway, I would totally recommend visiting Galiano Island. You can easily make a day trip out of it if you're into hiking. Apparently lots of people do that there. Or you can do with my friend and I did. Take a weekend to yourselves, unplug (no laptops and (minimal) cellphone usage!), and enjoy nature.
I think exploring BC islands and the different spa resorts that they have is going to be a thing Linda and I do from here on out. Definitely worth every penny.
Jen
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