Victoria BC, Butchart Gardens +++

/ Garrulous Gwendoline

Sunday June 10th, 2018

brown white and gray building

Empress Hotel Victoria BC Photo by Onur Kurtic on Pexels.com

We’ve signed up for the 22 Day Canadian Wilderness and Alaskan Cruise tour with Travelmarvel. At last night’s meet and greet we were surprised (and pleased) to discover there are only fourteen on our tour.

First up this morning was a trip out to Butchart Gardens. I can barely imagine there is a tourist who does not visit this beautiful attraction. The brochure says it is visited by more than a million annually. The extensive grounds are well laid out and lead the viewer from one garden theme to the next, starting with the Sunken Garden, which is actually the bottom of a former cement quarry pit. Other gardens include Rose, Japanese and Italian styles. There are fountains, herbaceous animals, statues and even a carousel. Hard to choose which photos to feature!

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Back in the city, and with free time after a short orientation tour, Bill and I headed to the waterfront for a meal at a fish and chip joint called Red Fish, Blue Fish. Along the way we bumped into another tour guide who warned us that it was popular. Sure was! Here’s a glimpse of a portion of the queue. We couldn’t see the head of it, but what we could see was at least this long. . . . We went elsewhere.

Queue waiting for fish and chips in Victoria

Close by we had stumbled across a gorgeous street sculpture called The Homecoming. Doesn’t it just put a smile on your face? Dedicated to all those who served at sea. The base includes names of the various naval vessels. The tour guide we had encountered said her father had served on the HMS Uganda, which has a wide-ranging and interesting history. (Having trouble linking that so I’ll leave the reader to check Wikipedia).
The HomecomingThe Homecoming

Dominating a part of the waterfront is the Empress Hotel, now joined in the Fairmont Chain but originally built in the early 1900s as a grand railway hotel. Its afternoon high tea is a big hit but I just went for a wander into the public access areas including some high end retail therapy (photo above).

In contrast my last wander of the day was through St Ann’s Academy in Humboldt Street just across the road from our hotel. This was a former girls’ school and convent built between 1871 and 1910. I spent a peaceful hour in the chapel and cloistered garden. My photos are stuck on my phone, but you can get an idea here.

14 thoughts on “Victoria BC, Butchart Gardens +++”

  3. Wonderful statue! “Coming home from sea” – I can identify with that during my sailing days! Lovely to have a small group but, as for the line-up for fish ‘n chips – don’t blame you for moving on!

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  4. Hi Gwen and Bill it is a wonderful place the gardens, it all started when the quarry manages wife started to fill in the old quarry with gardens, We had high tea at that hotel while the fellows played cricket, you are bringing back memories

    Have a great time
    Marion and Lindsay

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  7. Cement quarry pit to a sunken garden looks like creative landscape gardening at its best and then the beautiful, evocative street bronze – seems like Canada is starting off well on the creative front but, shame about that oh so lonnggggg queue for the culinary delights though.

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