Beautiful Victoria. Victoria is the capital of British Columbia and sits on the craggy southern end of Vancouver Island. With its abundant parkland, it is known for outdoor activities. The city’s British colonial past shows in its Victorian architecture, including the stately, Craigdarroch Castle, which is believed to be Canada’s only castle. One of the main features of a visit to Victoria is to take in the magnificent 55 acres of the vivid floral displays at Butchart Gardens. We docked here at just before noon with a 10:30pm all aboard time.
As soon as the ship was cleared we, along with Dot and Ed, headed out to find our Uber to take us downtown to the car rental company. Ah, no Uber here in Victoria, what? We had to resort to the archaic system of calling a taxi, great. The dispatcher indicated that he could get me a taxi but without a definite time frame, he then needed an address, I gave him the one to the closest house I could find. He then told me that I would have better luck if I tried to flag one down, really… So moments later we flagged down a competitor’s taxi, who it seemed that he was not wanting our fare only to downtown, Jan was having nothing of that bs and although reluctant took us to our rental car pickup. This is a prime example of why Uber is a far better service for the people who just need a ride without all the crap.
Car pickup went great and because the gas tank wasn’t full he marked it at a half tank although it was two thirds full which actually meant we did not need to make a gas fill today. Thirty minutes later we were at the wonderful Butchart Gardens for a nice stroll around the grounds. Our cost at this time of year was $36.50 pp, parking included. Give yourselves a good two hours for the park itself and then whatever time for retail therapy and/or a meal, so a real good visit would be three plus hours and definitely worth it.
We then headed over to the Craigdarroch Castle for a short ten minute photo opportunity before visiting the recommended stop at Beacon Hill Park. Beacon Hill Park is a wonderful oasis in the city offering ponds, walking paths over picturesque bridges, flowers, gardens, a petting zoo as well as home to the World’s Largest free standing Totem pole. We also had another quick photo stop at the Mile zero marker of the Trans Canada Highway along with a pic of a statute of our local hero, Terry Fox.
With GPS battery dying we just made it back to the car rental where we began the 45 minute walk back to ship. Why walk? Well, it is a very picturesque walk along Government Street and into China Town before you get to the waterfront and the Empress Hotel and the Parliament Buildings, so with optional stops along the way we did this walk back to the ship in about 90 mins. This got us back to the ship at about 7:30 giving us enough time to make it for out 8pm dinner. The weather held today making our short to Victoria just perfect.
In the morning we took our time leaving the beautiful Koningsdam, exiting at about 9:15, we were back in our condo about 45 mins later. Now why can’t embarkation be this smooth. Speaking of which, there were three ships in this day and I saw on a FB feed that it took some people three hours to board the ship, yikes…
Some pics of our day, hope you enjoyed our quick cruise to Hawaii and back. I will soon be posted and catching up on the “Turf” part of our travels. Our plan to be posted in a matter of days. Our scheduled departure date is May 8th…
Sunken Gardens
No comments:
Post a Comment