June 20, 2005
We arrived on the Victoria Clipper at about 6pm to Sunny skies. We
stayed at the Laurel Point Inn. The view from our balcony above. Most
of the hotels are less modern looking.
The Empress Hotel dominates the inner harbour. Various street vendors
are selling their wares under the umbrellas.
The capitol building is also quite dominating. They say that the
fellow who built this was disappointed that the copper domes didn't
turn green fast enough so they sprayed horse urine on them to get
them to age faster. Then they put their politicians inside, eh.
We visited Miniture World on the back side of the Empress Hotel. It's
full of dioramas depicting various events in history.
Took more pictures of them.
June 21, 2005
The next day we hopped on one of the double decker busses in front
of the Empress Hotel.
And headed out to Butchart Gardens.
Where we found some flowers.
And some gardens.
And manicured lawns.
And fountains.
And gardeners.
And topiary animals.
And more fountains and more gardens.
And more gardeners.
There was nothing happening at the amphitheater today.
But we saw some more flowers.
And a bazillion roses.
Looking across the lawn toward the Star Fountain.
The Japanese Garden.
The Star Fountain.
The Italian Garden.
Actually, if Darlene and I had 200 full time
gardeners, our yard would look this nice.
We grabbed a bit of lunch before heading back.
Back in town we found they put up a new statue. It says "Plaster
Man" on the front of his box. Yesterday we watched a unicycling
juggler at this same place. There was some other joker dressed up
like Gandalf wandering around as well.
The weather is starting to turn.
June 22, 2005
After an informative and interesting tour through and around Victoria
in another double decker bus we relax watching the little harbor ferries
while we wait for our departure time.