Two Weeks in Alberta & The Canadian Rockies

An outdoor-oriented exploration of the gateway cities and national parks of the Rockies begins in Calgary. Take a day to explore the energetic city center, beginning at the Eau Claire Market and the adjacent Prince's Island Park. The Stephen Avenue area, about all that remains of the city's historic downtown, is now a pedestrian area and home to many restaurants, street performers, and nightclubs. The Glenbow Museum, one of Canada's top art and cultural institutions, is also here, and is a good destination if the weather turns.

If you have kids along, consider a visit to the Canada Olympic Park, where some of the competition for the 1988 Winter Olympics took place. In addition to visiting the top of the ski jump platform, you can also take a ride down the luge slope year-round.

Follow Highway 1 west toward the Rockies. Within an hour, you'll pass beneath the soaring peaks at Canmore and then enter Banff National Park. Banff Townsite is filled with grand hotels, modern lodges, B&B inns, plus innumerable restaurants and pubs. You could easily spend most of a day just exploring the town, particularly if you like to shop. However, you'll want to spend at least 3 or 4 days to explore the natural sites of the park, which include boat tours on Lake Minnewanka, float trips down the Bow River, hiking Johnston Canyon, and riding the gondola to the top of Sulphur Mountain.

Although just an hour to the west of Banff, Lake Louise is its own destination. Plan to spend a couple of nights here to explore the lake, with its fantastic château-style hotel going eye-to-eye with a glacier. Hiking trails lead to the toe of the glacier where you can replenish yourself with tea and scones at a wilderness teahouse. In the next valley over, Moraine Lake is perhaps even more dramatic, with 10 spirelike peaks rising above a placid lake.

It will take a full day to travel the phenomenal Icefield Parkway between Lake Louise and Banff, which crosses Sunwapta Pass beneath the massive Columbia Icefield. Stop to explore the glacier aboard specially built Snocoaches, which can safely venture out onto the surface of the icefield.

Jasper National Park is even more outdoors oriented than Banff; the townsite itself is less focused on shopping. To begin to take in Jasper's sites, you'll need 3 days: You'll want to visit Miette Hot Springs, raft the Athabasca River, or perhaps ride horseback around Pyramid Lake trail system. If you're a golfer, the course at Jasper Park Lodge is among the most noted in Canada.

Leave the park by heading east on the Yellowhead Highway to Edmonton, Alberta's capital. Spend a couple nights here and explore the city's trendy Strathcona neighborhood, the domed legislative building, and the art gallery district around High Street. Travel an hour east to visit the fascinating Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village, which re-creates an entire Ukrainian emigrant community from the early years of the 20th century. In midsummer, you can time travel by watching farmers and tradesmen at work with historic tools in period garb.

Return to Calgary via Highway 2, and spend your final evening in Alberta in one of Calgary's excellent restaurants.