Starr Treks Wednesday 6/3/15 Victoria Canada
We left the RV at 6:30 to drive to the Anacortes ferry — it did not leave till 8:30, but Larry always like to be early — so we were like 2nd in the car line. The ferry came in a little after 8 and I could not believe how many cars, trucks, SUV’s, and semis drove off of it. We were assigned to the Victoria lane, so those who were getting off in the San Juan Islands got to drive on first. This is not the big tourist season yet, so it was not full at all. I was pleasantly surprised how comfortable and nice the ferry was. It had lots of padded bench seats with backs facing each other. There were also booths with tables where people could eat or work. Two ladies were doing a jigsaw puzzle! The next floor up had a cafeteria plus more sitting areas. There was even a duty free store (just a hole in the wall) which you could go to after the San Juan Island stop. You could walk around, go on the outer deck (it was a little chilly), or, some people laid down on the bench seat and slept! It was interesting to dock in the San Juan Islands — even a big RV came off! It cost us $54.25 for the car and one driver, and $9.50 for me— these are half price tickets for seniors! We’ll have to pay the same on the way back, so not cheap, but not horrible. I had packed lunches, so we ate an early lunch in one of the booths. They had some information about the ferry system— it started in 1989, running between Seattle and West Seattle. Ferries were private for several years, then in 1951 the state of WA bought the system. Each ferry holds 200 cars and 2,000 passengers! I had brought all my seasick meds with me, but no problem at all— the water was very calm.
We arrived in Sidney around 11:10. We drove off the ferry easily, then had to go thru customs. We had eaten our apple and grapes up before we got off the ferry, so we had nothing to declare. We drove first to the Butchart Gardens — many people have told us to go there. It was about 5 mile south of Sidney. The weather was not bad, but pretty much overcast. The gardens were gorgeous. They are open year round. They are 111 years old— Robert and Jennie Butchart came to live on Vancouver Island and named their home Benvento — Italian for Welcome. They bought land where a limestone quarry existed, that supported Robert’s nearby Portland cement plant — now the Sunken Gardens display is there. It is still owned by the family and is a National historic Site of Canada. We walked thru the whole garden, which is pretty hilly. The roses were not quite “ripe” yet, but the Japanese garden was very pretty. We had some gelato in the Italian garden which was very good!
We then drove 12 miles to Victoria. We could go 80 KM/hr on the highway 17 (sounds fast, but only about 50 MPH). There were signs that said “Slippery when Frosty”. We found our hotel, the Red Lion Inn fairly easily — nothing fancy, but quite nice— we are about 2 miles from downtown Victoria. We drove downtown and found a parking garage near the public library. Victoria is bigger than I thought— it is a city of 70,000. We walked 2-3 blocks to the Empress Hotel. There was a little museum there called Miniature World. It had numerous dioramas with the teeniest miniatures I have ever seen. They had buttons to push and activate parts of the exhibit. There were portrayals of war battles that Canadians have fought in, Dickens books, nursery rhymes, circus, huge doll houses, and a scale model of the Canadian Pacific Railway. There were videos put together by the creator of most of the dioramas. It was interesting.
We walked around the corner to go into the Empress Hotel lobby — looked very nice. We walked down one hall to peek into the area where people were drinking “high tea” — Larry said he would rather have a highball than high tea!
We walked across to the visitor center where they had free wifi, so got to check our email. We then walked along the inner harbor. They have a terminal for sea planes there. We were looking for an order at the counter type food place called Red Fish Blue Fish, but they were closed today. I found another restaurant on Trip Advisor called Fish Hook, so we located that for an early dinner. It is billed as seafood with an Indian flavor. I wrote down what I ordered— pondicherry smoked sockeye and shrimp koftas with sweet corn chili salsa and masala gravy & rice. Larry had tandoor sockeye with the same salsa — his was a big fillet of salmon. Mine was sort of like salmon cakes. They were both really excellent.
Tomorrow we will hit some more museums and eat some more fish!
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