Victoria

Our friends, Jeff and Julie, invited us to go to Victoria, BC with them to celebrate Julie's birthday.  We flew up there in our plane.  It is always a beautiful flight seeing all the Cascade volcanoes, Puget Sound, the Olympic Mountains, and the San Juan Islands.  On the way to Victoria, we saw a nuclear submarine returning to Bangor which was fun to see. 

Julie wanted to go to an English pub to celebrate her birthday so we went to the Sticky Wicket for dinner that night.  And she got a huge brownie and ice cream to share with us all.

After dinner we headed to the Empress Hotel to check it out.  It is famous for its afternoon teas but is also incredibly expensive.  So we planned our tea at a different location.  But is was fun checking out the dining rooms and gift shops there.  There was a huge floral arrangement in the hotel lobby to commemorate Prince George Alexander Louis' birth. 

Going to Butchart Gardens is always a must when going to Victoria.  It is a beautiful location with the Sunken Gardens being my favorite garden.  There are also Mediterranean, Japanese, Rose, and Italian gardens there.  We had a little time to kill before going to tea so we headed to the British Columbia Air Museum in Sidney for a bit to enjoy the open house they were having that day.  Didn't take any pictures there.

We then headed to our reservation at the White Heather Tearoom to enjoy our afternoon tea.  We ordered the "Not So Wee Tea" which included scones with raspberry jam, lemon curd and Devonshire cream; asparagus and carmelized onion quiche; four kinds of sandwiches--egg salad, ham salad, chicken salad and cucumber; and four desserts--lemon pound cake, hazelnut shortbread, lemon tarts and date squares.  It was incredibly decadent and we were all so full that we didn't know if we wanted to eat dinner or not.  But we ended up going to dinner after all.

After tea, we decided to checkout Oak Bay and decided to drive back to downtown along the coastline.  We stopped at McNeill Bay for a bit to take a walk on the beach.

And came across this wedding party taking pictures there.  What was amazing to me is this was way out into the water crossing multiple rocks to get there.  It must have been quite the feat for the bride, bridesmaid and even the guys to get there is their dress shoes and heels.

We went to the Royal BC Museum in the evening.  There are a lot of wonderful exhibits there but my favorite is the Native American one.  They have a lot of totem poles.  Bill had some fun imitating one outside.  It was with great surprise and joy that we discovered that the traveling exhibit was about the race to the South Pole by Scott and Amundson.  Bill has a great interest in this subject and has read a few books and watched programs about it.  It was a fascinating exhibit. 

 

The parliament grounds are beautiful.  And it is beautiful at night as well when they light the building. 

It is always an enjoyable excursion to go to Victoria and this trip was no exception.