a Suite at Kitsilano Cottage

About Kitsilano

"Hard to believe, but in the '60s Kitsilano was a neighborhood that had fallen on hard times. Nobody respectable wanted to live there--the 1920s homes had all been converted to cheap rooming houses--so the hippies moved in. The neighborhood became Canada's Haight-Ashbury, with coffeehouses, head shops, and lots of incense and long hair. Once the boom generation stopped raging against the machine, they realized that Kitsilano--right next to the beach, but not quite downtown--was a groovy place to live and a darn fine place to own property. Real estate began an upward trend that has never stopped, and Kits became thoroughly yuppiefied. Nowadays, it's a fun place to wander. There are great bookstores and trendy furniture and housewares shops, lots of consignment clothing stores, snowboard shops, coffee everywhere, and lots of places to eat. Indeed, every third storefront is a restaurant. The best parts of Kitsilano are the stretch of W. Fourth Avenue between Burrard and Balsam streets, and W. Broadway between Macdonald and Alma streets. " -- From Frommer's