Victoria, BC

Since I had a little time to kill before my job started, I wanted to take advantage and plan a mini vacation.  Victoria is really easy to get to because there's a high speed ferry (The Victoria Clipper) that leaves from Seattle, just a few blocks from my house, travels through the Puget Sound, and gets to the inner harbor of Victoria BC in less than 3 hours.  Also, I was eager to use my fancy new enhanced driver's license so, why not?

View from the back deck of the Clipper

My aunt offered to keep me company and come with me on the trip which was really great!  I definitely had a lot more fun with her than I would have going by myself.


I didn't bother to do any planning except for booking the Clipper and the hotel, but thankfully everything worked out fine.  Even though Victoria is one of the oldest cities in the Pacific Northwest, it's super tiny with a population of only 78,000!  It was a perfect combination because there were tons of beautiful historic buildings and it was really easy to walk around the whole city.  Our hotel was in a great location: right on the waterfront, although, to be honest... I think basically everything in Victoria is right on the waterfront.

View from the hotel balcony

The weather was pretty good for our trip, a little bit chilly, but lots of sunshine which was a nice change of pace from Seattle.  I even managed to get a little sunburn on my nose the first day (I learned my lesson and wore sunscreen the 2nd day).  One of my absolute favorite things to do is wander around a new place, so that's exactly what we did!

On the first day, we walked all along the waterfront and stopped at Spinnakers, the oldest brewpub in Canada, for lunch.  When I heard this, I thought it sounded really impressive since Victoria is such an old city, but then I learned that Canada had weird liquor control laws which prevented such establishments from operating until the 1980's so Spinnakers is only 27 years old.  Oh well, it was still a great place to grab a pint and some lunch with an awesome view of the harbor.

After lunch we walked through and around The Empress Hotel and the Parliament Building which are probably the two most impressive and recognizable buildings in Victoria.  The Empress holds a fancy high-tea service every afternoon which I briefly considered checking out, but it was almost $60/person, required a reservation, dress clothes (Barb and packed light and both only brought a tiny backpack each), and although I've never met a petit four I didn't like, egg salad and chicken salad sandwiches just aren't my cup of tea.  Hahaha, get it?  Cup of tea?

Instead we opted for the quaint little James Bay Tea House around the corner.  The whole place was decked out in British Royalty paraphernalia.  I don't think I'd ever realized how close the ties were between Canada and England.  I know, I know... it is called British Columbia, but it's not like they have strong ties to Columbia.  Besides offering a nice, hot cup of tea, the place also offered a whole host of interesting characters: the cranky middle-aged waitress, the old lady dressed in head-to-toe purple corduroy who was really excited to meet up with her friend and get drunk on cream sherry (don't worry, she was planning on walking home) until she realized that they weren't schedule to meet for another 4 days, and the kooky wino in the corner who tried desperately to engage us in political conversation.

After tea we headed out to Odgen Point.  Apparently it is some sort of engineering marvel and helps protect the harbor, but it just looked like a random stretch of road going into the ocean.  Barb wasn't thrilled about the narrow walkway, but we still managed to make it all the way out to the end.

For dinner we found a posh little place right on the water (see what I mean...) with an amazing view of the Parliament building all lit up at night.  The food was delicious, but the best part of the restaurant was that they offered glasses of wine in two sizes: regular and the extra mile (aka a "Kristy glass").  Hehehe, it's not like we had to drive anywhere so we ended up staying almost until closing!  After such an awesome, full day we were both ready for a good night's sleep.

The next day we headed over to the Fisherman's wharf in search of some breakfast.  We managed to find a nice little place for some coffee and pastries, but we ran into some other folks who were searching for a little breakfast of their own: harbor seals!!!  They were swimming around right by the docks and poking their heads up apparently in hopes of some fish.  There is a fish market right by the dock, which was closed, but I guess when it's open you can buy fish and feed the seals.  I'm pretty sure that falls under the category of "don't feed the wildlife" but they were so irresistibly cute that I can understand the temptation.  The wharf area had a really interesting combination of touristy activities, residential house boats, and commercial fishing operations.

Next, we walked along the waterfront (a different one than the day before) and up to Beacon Hill Park.  There was a petting zoo area with gorgeous peacocks and adorable baby goats although we didn't actually partake in the petting part.  The park also had all sorts of gardens, ponds, fountains, and paths and was buzzing with people.  From there we headed to the downtown shopping district, but since both of us were only interested in window shopping, we just quickly strolled through.  By that time, it was early afternoon and the Clipper wasn't leaving for Seattle for about five more hours.  Hmmmm... what to do?  I suppose we could have checked out the Royal BC Museum, caught a bus out to Butchart Gardens, or tried to find Craigdarroch Castle, but instead we decided a pub crawl was a perfectly legitimate way to enjoy the city! 

On a previous visit to Victoria Barb had spent some good times at Swans Brewpub, but since I had never been there we obviously had to check it out.  Next we saw a supper swanky looking Scottish pub that was just so gorgeous inside that we had to have a drink.  Then, while walking around, we saw an Irish pub and decided it would be prejudice of us if we stopped at the Scottish place, but not the Irish place.  Honestly we were just trying to be fair so we had to stop for a pint.  After that, whatdoyaknow, it was time to catch the ferry home :)

I had a fabulous little trip and it was exactly the sort of adventure I was looking for before having to return the the real world.