Blogs from Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, North America - page 5

It's 9.08 on 13th July. So now we're drawing towards the end of out time in Victoria, and we will be leaving for the U.S. in just a few days. In this blog I will write about our weekend here with Donna and Bob, and it'll be the the penultimate blog written in Canada. Friday I got up at a reasonable time - 8am maybe, and went for a run. As usual, the last of us were up by 10.30, and we were ready to discuss plans for the day. As we were going to watch a lacrosse game that evening, the girls were happy to spend the day sunbathing while Matt seemed content doing something on his phone. So, I decided to walk the hour or so down to the new mall that had just ... read more

It's 9.25 on the 7th of July. There's been a very welcome change of pace here in Victoria, as I'm sure you've noticed from my last blog. We've had a chance to kick back and relax here after the craziness of Toronto and The Rockies. It does mean however, there isn't so much to write about so these blogs will be a little shorter for a while. So Saturday. Donna and Bob had booked us in for the museum at noon, so we spent the morning having breakfast and showering and the like. By noon we were ready and Donna gave us a lift in to the city, dropping us outside the museum which was set back a little from the inner harbour, next to the government buildings. The museum itself was made up of two ... read more

Sailing into Victoria we could see the approaching barren mountains of the coast looming closer, barren of any snow (okay, so it is summer isn’t it, and to paraphrase the Wizard of Oz, we’re not in Alaska any more)! Sharon headed to mass and then we headed up to the Lido for Breakfast. I got myself a serving of Swiss muesli in the Lido and some French toast to go with it. I had to wait because there wasn’t any premade ready to serve. Sharon got her scrambled eggs and they’ve reverted to the really soggy, chew, jerky-like turkey bacon. We went back to the cabin to don our “We don’t need Google” T-Shirts to commemorate this final day of Team Trivia at 10:00 AM in the Crow’s Nest. We stopped at the Explorer’s Lounge to ... read more

Geo: 48.4218, -123.368We had been getting around from place to place on the red bus but today we were committed to getting a closer look at the harbour surrounds on foot. Lucky the map didn't have distances on it or we may have been daunted. Endomodo and UP keep us honest and credited us with 25 000 steps and 14 kilometres of tourist heaven. Ironically we started the day by organising some transport for upcoming events - a shuttle bus to "the" gardens and a dusk carriage ride for Friday. With those details in place it was off to Parliament.The facade of the building is magnificent and of course we have enjoyed the night time view from The Empress because the building has been outlined in some 4 500 lights - which make a distinctive daily ... read more

Geo: 48.4219, -123.367Location, location. You can't beat it. Perched right on the Inner Harbour in Victoria it seems that all roads lead to The Empress. The boats, yachts, skiffs, ferries, kayaks, paddle boards and cruise lines, the sea planes, the buses, the bikes and scooters, the cabs and even the horse drawn carriages are at our front door. And right across the road is the Visitor Centre. And after doing a very very happy dance because we have an IRON at last (who would have thought this would be so special!) the Visitor Centre with the very helpful Ted was our first stop.Tried our best for room service team to be out by 10 am but it was closer to 11 before the day was under way. We opted for a two day Hop on Hop ... read more