Victoria

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Yet another beautiful day as we set out to explore Victoria, which although officially a city, is more like a town. No need for public transport, everywhere is within walkable distance and I do like to walk! So we explored the old town and market square before walking through Chinatown. Apparently this area was once filled with brothels and opium dens, but today it is just shops and eateries. It is home to both Fan Tan alley, supposedly the narrowest street in the world and the Gate of Harmonious Interest. Here 2 stone chimeras stand and legend says that they will come to life when an honest politician walks between them. They were still petrified today.

After lunch at the oldest bakery in North America, we explored the inner harbour area, before deciding it was time for a little bit of culture and education. The Royal British Columbia museum certainly provided that as it's excellent exhibits and displays covered the natural history and modern history of BC and the story of the First Peoples or aboriginal culture. There was also an Egyptian touring exhibition,but we had to give that a miss as we had a dose of museum fatigue.
We then walked around the shoreline to Fisherman's Wharf and then carried on to the cruise ship terminal, where 2 large American line ships were moored.
Our final visit of the day was to Beacon Hill park, which is very close to where we are staying. This is Victoria's city park and it was a lovely mixture of parkland, lakes and fountains and woods. From it's highest point we had a view of the snow covered peaks of the Olympic Mountains of Washington State.
We have enjoyed our visit to Victoria despite one of our guide books saying it is often referred to as a destination for the 'newly wed, nearly dead and overfed'.

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