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Where better for the 2010 Olympics Winter Games to take place than the home of Winter Sports – CANADA! Vancouver is regarded as one the most popular cities in North America, while nearby Whistler counts itself among the world’s best ski resorts.

During the Torino 2006 Winter Olympics, Ludus Tours hosted more than 2,000 clients from all over the world.

Ludus Tours will have packages that include hotels in both Whistler and Vancouver city center. Please contact us to find out more specifics about what we have to offer for your Olympic adventure.

2006 Clients in Torino, Italy Statistics:

• Number of clients: 2000+

• Number of Olympic medalists: 14

• Number of countries represented: 27

Clients Included:

Outside	CBS News	Cloudveil	ABC News	Samsung
Budweiser	TSE	Pepsi	ABC News	Canadian Speedskating

About Vancouver
Vancouver is the largest city in British Columbia and the third largest city in Canada. It's surrounded by water on three sides and is nestled alongside the Coast Mountain Range. Vancouver is home to spectacular natural scenery and a bustling metropolitan core, and boasts one of the mildest climates in Canada.

The City of Vancouver supports a wide range of destination sites — from more than 190 parks to three different civic theatres — that are interesting places to visit for tourists and residents alike. Vancouver is also home to many other sights and is networked by a comprehensive transportation system.

Fast Facts

Currency
Yes, Canada has its own currency, people...and it's no longer a laughing matter! The US and Canadian Dollar are almost equal. You can check daily exchange rates here.

Consulates
US Consulate in Vancouver
UK Consulate in Vancouver
Australian Consulate in Vancouver
New Zealand Consulate in Vancouver
South African Consulate

Internet
Free Internet access is available at the Vancouver public library Central Branch, 350 W. Georgia Street. Just across the street, Webster's Internet Cafe, 340 Robson St. charges for access but generally has a computer available. At the other end of Robson Street there's Cyber Space Internet Café. With the ever-growing cafe culture, there are sprouting up plenty of free wi-fi areas all around town.

Laundry & Dry Cleaning
Davie Laundromat (1061 Davie Street) offers self-service, drop-off service, and dry cleaning. Laundry & Suntanning, (781 Denman) doesn't have dry-cleaning services, but you can work on your tan while you wait.

Drinking in Vancouver
The legal drinking age in British Columbia is 19. Spirits are sold only in government liquor stores, but beer and wine can be purchased from specially licensed, privately owned stores and pubs. Most LCBC (Liquor Control of British Columbia) stores are open Monday through Saturday from 10am to 6pm, but some are open to 11pm.

Luggage Storage and Lockers
Most downtown hotels will gladly hold your luggage before or after your stay. Just ask at the front desk. Lockers are available at the main Vancouver railway station (which is also the main bus depot), Pacific Central Station (1150 Station Street) for C$2 per day.

Newspapers & Magazines
The two local papers are the Vancouver Sun, published Monday through Saturday, and The Province, published Sunday through Friday mornings. The free weekly entertainment paper, The Georgia Straight, comes out on Thursday. Where Vancouver, a shopping/tourist guide, can be found in your hotel room or at Tourism Vancouver.

Police
For emergencies, dial 911. This is a free call and the same as in the USA.

Post Office & Mail
Letters and postcards up to 30 grams cost 85¢ to mail to the U.S. and C$1.45 for overseas airmail service; 50¢ within Canada. You can buy stamps and mail parcels at the main post office or at any of the postal outlets inside drugstores and convenience stores. Look for a POSTAL SERVICES sign.

The main post office is at West Georgia and Homer streets (349 W. Georgia). It's open Monday through Friday from 8am to 5:30pm. You'll also find post office outlets in Shopper's Drug Mart and 7-Eleven stores with longer opening hours.

Restrooms
Fast food restaurants and hotel lobbies are your best bet for downtown facilities. The shopping centers like Pacific Centre and Sinclair Centre also have restrooms.

Safety
Overall, Vancouver is a safe city; violent-crime rates are quite low. However, property crimes and crimes of opportunity (such as items being stolen from unlocked cars) occur pretty frequently, particularly downtown. Vancouver's Downtown East Side, on Hastings between Gastown and Chinatown, is a troubled neighborhood and should be avoided at night. That being said, it's more eyesore than danger in this area.

Taxes
Most goods and services are subject to a 5% federal goods and services tax (GST). Save your receipts: You can get a refund. Each purchase must be greater than $50, and you must have a total of at least $200 to file a claim. (This refund doesn't apply to car rentals, parking, restaurant meals, room service, tobacco, or alcohol.) Hotels and the Info Centres can give you application forms, which you then mail to Revenue Canada on your return home. After processing, the government sends a check to your home address. For details on the GST, visit The Canadian Revenue website.

Phones in Vancouver
Phones in British Columbia are identical to U.S. phones. The country code is the same as the U.S. code (1). Local calls normally cost C25¢. Many hotels charge up to C$1 per local call and much more for long-distance calls. You can save considerably by using your calling card or cellphone.

City Layout

With four different bodies of water lapping at its edges and mile after mile of shoreline, Vancouver's geography can seem a bit complicated. That's part of the city's maritime charm, of course, and visitors usually don't find it too difficult to get their bearings.

	Downtown Vancouver is on a peninsula: think of it as an upraised thumb on the mitten-shaped Vancouver mainland. Stanley Park, the West End, Yaletown, and Vancouver's business and financial center are

located on this thumb of land bordered to the north by Burrard Inlet, the city's main deep-water harbor and port, to the west by English Bay, and to the south by False Creek.

Farther west beyond English Bay is the Pacific Ocean. Just south across False Creek is Granville Island, famous for its public market, and the beach community of Kitsilano. This part of the city, called the West Side, covers the mainland, or the hand of the mitten. Its western shoreline looks out on the Strait of Georgia with the Pacific beyond, and the North Arm of the Fraser River demarcates it to the south.

Pacific Spirit Park and the University of British Columbia (UBC), a locus for visitors because of its outstanding Museum of Anthropology, take up most of the western tip of the West Side; the rest is mostly residential, with a sprinkling of businesses along main arterial streets. Both mainland and peninsula are covered by a simple rectilinear street pattern.

North Vancouver is the mountain-backed area directly across Burrard Inlet from downtown Vancouver.

Main Streets & Orientation

On the downtown peninsula, there are four key east-west streets. Robson Street starts at B.C. Place Stadium on Beatty Street, flows through the West End's more touristed shopping district, and ends at Stanley Park's Lost Lagoon on Lagoon Drive. Georgia Street -- muchmore efficient for drivers than the pedestrian-oriented Robson -- runs from the Georgia Viaduct on the eastern edge of downtown through Vancouver's commercial core, through Stanley Park, and over the Lions Gate Bridge to the North Shore. Three blocks north of Georgia is Hastings Street, which begins in the West End, runs east through downtown, and then skirts Gastown's southern border as it runs eastward to the Trans-Canada Highway. Davie Street starts at Pacific Boulevard near the Cambie Street Bridge, travels through Yaletown into the West End's more residential shopping district, and ends at English Bay Beach.

	Three north-south downtown streets will get you everywhere you want to go in and out of downtown. Two blocks east of Stanley Park is Denman Street, which runs from W. Georgia Street at Coal Harbour to Beach Avenue at English Bay Beach. This main West End thoroughfare is where locals dine out. It's also the shortest north-south route between the two ends of the Stanley Park Seawall.

Eight blocks east of Denman is Burrard Street, which starts near the Canada Place Pier and runs south through downtown, crosses the Burrard Street Bridge, and then forks. One branch, still Burrard Street, continues south and intersects W. Fourth Avenue and Broadway Avenue before ending at W. 16th Avenue on the borders of the ritzy Shaughnessy neighborhood. The other branch becomes Cornwall Avenue, which heads west through Kitsilano, changing its name to Point Grey Road and then N.W. Marine Drive before entering the University of British Columbia campus.

Granville Street starts near the Waterfront Station on Burrard Inlet and runs the entire length of downtown, crosses the Granville Bridge to Vancouver's West Side, and carries on south across the breadth of the city before crossing the Arthur-Laing Bridge to Vancouver International Airport.

On the mainland portion of Vancouver, the city's east-west roads are successively numbered from First Avenue at the downtown bridges to 77th Avenue by the banks of the Fraser River. By far, the most important east-west route is Broadway (formerly Ninth Ave.), which starts a few blocks from the University of British Columbia (UBC) and extends across the length of the city to the border of neighboring Burnaby, where it becomes the Lougheed Highway. In Kitsilano, W. Fourth Avenue is also an important east-west shopping and commercial corridor. Intersecting with Broadway at various points are a number of important north-south commercial streets, each of which defines a particular neighborhood. The most significant of these streets are (from west to east) Macdonald Street in Kitsilano, Granville Street, Cambie Street, Main Street, and Commercial Drive.