Banff National Park 🍁

With the new car, we drove towards Banff, where we had booked 4 nights. You can easily spend a whole day between the two places because there is so much to see and so many hiking trails. We visited the famous Lake Louise on the way to Jasper, as it was on the way. On the first day in Banff, we walked along the Bow River to the Bow Falls - beautiful, as so much was already frozen ❄ In the evening, we drove to the 'Upper Hot Springs', which were highly recommended to me. However, I personally found them too hot at 39°C, so we were only in the water for about 15-20 minutes and paid 8.30$ per person for it. Besides, it looks like a normal, small swimming pool and not like a hot spring. The only nice thing was the view of the mountains, but I can also have that from the outside... so I don't think it's recommendable!

On the second day, we drove to Lake Minnewanka. The lake had a small island with a few fir trees on it - so cute. Then we drove to a cave with warm, sulphurous water (Cave and Basin). It didn't smell so nice there..🤢 And in the afternoon, we set off on a 3-hour hike to the top of Sulphur Mountain. The trail was so slippery - I was really scared that I would slip off the trail and fall down. Luckily, we didn't have to walk back down as we were allowed to ride the gondola down for free. On my birthday, we went to Johnstons Canyon, which was a very beautiful hike! After that, we visited Lake Emerald and in the evening we went to eat in Banff. Since the province of Alberta is known for the best steaks in the world, we went to the steakhouse. And now I can say 'Yes, it's worth eating a steak there!'