ALASKA/CANADA TRIP 2012: Part 2

Our next journey was on the Victoria Clipper which is a catamaran sailing from Seattle to Victoria on Vancouver Island. See pic of Clipper below.

We stayed in the Worldmark timeshare apartment which is within walking distance of the tourist attractions in Victoria.

Various impressive buildings look out on Victoria Harbour. We started sightseeing by walking past the Parliament of British Columbia (see pic below).

We then toured the Royal British Columbia Museum. We saw the First Peoples Gallery, which has much of interest about indigenous Americans. The pic below shows totem poles in front of a long house.

The History Gallery in the Museum has recreated 1890s buildings and streets which visitors can walk through (see pic below). It also has an old style theatre showing silent movies.

The Natural History Gallery has excellent dioramas about coastal forests and sea shores, with the sounds and smells of those environments. See pic below of grizzly bear diorama.

Behind the Museum is Thunderbird Park, where there are several totem poles and a long house. See pic below.

The Fairmont Empress Hotel faces Victoria Harbour and is a monumental building in the old style - see pic below.

For Mother's Day we went to the high tea at the Fairmont Empress, a classy and expensive cup of tea with cakes. See pic below.

Behind the Fairmont Empress is Miniature World, full of dioramas of miniature versions of scenes from Canada's history, famous battles and buildings from around the world, as well as moving trains. See pic below of diorama of famous castles from around the world.

We did a harbour cruise on a small Victoria Harbour ferry. Views from the ferry included float planes and a cruise ship. The pics below show the ferry and floating houses at Fisherman's Wharf at the end of the cruise. A floating house tends to be a 2-3 storey house on a floating cement base.

We took a bus trip to Butchart Gardens, happily on a sunny blue sky day. This is a world famous local attraction, built in an excavated quarry once used for materials by a cement company. It is divided into distinct areas, including a formal Japanese garden and an Italian garden. One of the highlights is the sunken garden - see pic below.