Victoria, BC – A Taste of the Old World

Roads Less Traveled

This charming city comes alive with colorful flowers

everywhere.

Parliament Building.

Victoria Harbor.

Historic Empress Hotel.

Parliament Building.

There are lots of places to stroll along the waterfront.

Victoria is a bustling town.

Entering China Town with the open-air bus tour.

Craigdarroch Castle, built by a coal magnate in 1890.

Penny Farthing Pub, Oak Bay

Street corner, Oak Bay

The coast outside of Victoria.

Dirving onto the ferry from Sidney, BC to Anacortes, WA. It

was a tight squeeze, but we fit in okay.

They packed us in like sardines.

Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

August 21-23, 2007 - We returned to Victoria from the upper reaches

of Vancouver Island and spent some time enjoying this very

European feeling city.  The harbor is dominated by the historic

Parliament Building and Empress Hotel, and there is always a lot of

activity along the waterfront by the marina.  We enjoyed the energy

and vitality of this city after the laid-back nature of the rest of the

island.

There was activity on every

corner.  Street musicians,

horses and buggies, open-air

and double-decker buses,

boats and seaplanes coming

and going -- there was action

everywhere.

Wait, what country am I in??  Feels like England !!

We took an open-air bus tour, a

great way to see the city.  The

tour took us out into the

outlying areas where we saw

Craigdarroch Castle, the

charming community of Oak

Bay and some exquisite areas

along the coast.

Feeling a little pressed by the impending end of summer, we

boarded the ferry once again in Sidney, BC and sailed through

the San Juan islands to Anacortes, Washington where we picked

up our road travels along the Northern Cascade mountains in

Washington.