Calgary

Calgary is the prairie city at the foot of the Rockies, built on ranching and energy and proud of both. For a Canadian traveller it makes a strong beginning to a mountain journey: a night or two at the Palliser or The Dorian, a steak dinner downtown, then the drive west to Banff, about ninety minutes away, and on to Lake Louise.

Calgary began in 1875 as Fort Calgary, a North-West Mounted Police post where the Bow and Elbow rivers meet, and grew with the Canadian Pacific Railway into the commercial capital of the prairies. Cattle made its early fortune and oil its later one; the towers of downtown, many of them energy headquarters, rise above the Bow, linked by the Plus 15, a network of enclosed walkways one storey above the street.

Beyond the towers, Stephen Avenue keeps the sandstone buildings of the early city, Inglewood and the Beltline hold many of its best restaurants and bars, and the Bow River pathways run for kilometres along the water. Studio Bell, home of the National Music Centre, and the Central Library by Snøhetta show a newer, more confident city. The Rockies stand on the horizon, and Banff National Park begins about an hour to the west.

July belongs to the Calgary Stampede, ten days of rodeo, chuckwagon races and pancake breakfasts that fill the city and every hotel in it; booking well ahead is essential. Summer days are long, dry and sunny, the best season for combining the city with hiking and lake country in Banff, Yoho and Kananaskis, and September brings golden larches to the high valleys.

Winter is cold but bright, interrupted by chinooks, the warm westerly winds that can lift the temperature by twenty degrees in a few hours. It is the season for skiing at Sunshine Village, Lake Louise and Norquay, all within two hours, with Calgary as the arrival point and a city night on the way home. Spring is short and changeable, and snow can return well into May.

Fairmont Palliser, opened by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1914 and recently renovated, remains the city’s grand hotel, a landmark of brick and stone near the Calgary Tower and a short ride from the Stampede grounds. The Dorian, Autograph Collection, one of the city’s newest towers, brings a contemporary house to downtown, while Hotel Arts, an independent hotel at the southern edge of the core, adds a design-led alternative with its outdoor pool and restaurants.

LVXVRY books the Palliser through Accor Preferred — at the official hotel rate, with the privileges the programme attaches to the stay — and advises on and arranges stays at The Dorian and Hotel Arts. For many travellers Calgary is the first or last night of a longer journey, and LVXVRY plans the onward stay in Banff or Lake Louise together with it.