Day 3. We get a late start out of our place and it’s noon by the time we get to Lake Louisa about 45 mins from Banff.  The parking lot is full so we have to turn around go back and exit and park in another lot where you get shuttled to Lake Louise on an old school bus.  

Everyone is hungry so we opt for lunch.  Hmmm – it seems that the only place at Lake Louise is the Fairmont Luxury Chateau Hotel.   Beautiful hotel built in the late 1880’s but at U$ 15 for a tiny ham and cheese croissant, the prices fully reflect their captive pricing as a monopoly provider at Lake Louise. The canoeing was even worse on that front.  One hour of canoeing is about US $110 per person – with 7 people that’s $770 for one hour.  I could buy one on Amazon for cheaper and get it shipped next day. We decide to pass and just walk around the lake shore.   

It’s a lot colder than we expected – in the 40’s F with snow on the ground in the surrounding mountains. As we are walking from the hotel to the lake, the sky lets loose with a downpour of rain and hail.  We are wet and freezing cold.  So much for my long summer - this is winter and it is here Jon Snow. A couple pictures later, we are out of there and on the school bus heading back.  For those considering visiting Banff, there are better things to do than Lake Louise.

For dinner, we decide to get more adventurous and go with Justin’s recommendation of the India Curry House as a training run for when we are in India later in the trip.  The meal is a success as everyone finds something they can eat and we try differing levels of spiciness.  I tried to ask the waiter from India for recommendations about New Delhi, Agra and Jaipur but it was tough with the language barrier.  I later realized it would have been the perfect time to try out Google translator. Oh well, next time.