Le Picnic by Veuve Clicquot at Parq

Harbour Air's floatplane throttles up across Coal Harbour, climbs over Lions Gate and Stanley Park, and lands back on the water like it weighs nothing.

The MV Harbour Princess leaves Coal Harbour at 7pm with a West Coast buffet, live music, and a rooftop deck timed so the sunset happens on board.

The cliche that earned it. Eight free volleyball nets, a driftwood log, and English Bay going full pink.

Movies under the stars on the North Vancouver waterfront, by donation.

Grab Denman Street takeout, claim a driftwood log, and watch the sun drop behind the North Shore mountains. Free, always.

Vancouver's best kite-flying lawn sits between Kits Beach and Granville Island, with a postcard skyline view and zero admission.

Stanley Park's west-facing sandy cove, where everyone on the seawall cycles past while you watch the real show.

A flat mirror-still lake loop that grows 700,000 lights every November and calls itself Lights at Lafarge.

Tiny rainbow ferries, five-minute crossing, Granville Island oysters, and a skyline that glows on the way home.

A dead-level wetland trail at the foot of Burke Mountain with herons, eagles, kingfishers and Golden Ears framed across the Pitt River.

Ten days of free waterfront concerts, an artisan market and wine gardens along West Vancouver's Ambleside seawall.

Former basalt quarry turned sunken flower garden, with a stone bridge that has starred in approximately every Vancouver wedding photo.

Ten minutes through never-logged Douglas firs to warm granite bluffs above the Point Atkinson lighthouse and Howe Sound.

English Bay's quieter cousin at the mouth of False Creek, where the ferries, the mountains, and the freighters all line up.