Saturday, September 12, 2015

Day 15 - Visiting Victoria, BC

Yet another beautiful morning.

Our first stop was the visitor center on the waterfront to get information about a good walking tour of the city.

We walked up to Chinatown, passing a street art festival that was just getting started. Various artists were invited to do colored chalk drawings with the theme of the spirit world. They came from as far away as southern California to participate.

Chinatown is surprisingly small, only a few square blocks, given the long history of the Chinese in Victoria, coming first to work on the railroads and then during the gold rush. One interesting part is an exceptionally narrow alley, only about 6 feet wide that has shops along the side.

There are many impressive brick buildings dating back to the 1850s - 1880s, constructed by the railroad and then the government when British Columbia become part of Canada in 1871. The parliament building is especially impressive and when we came back in the evening it was lit up with lights outlining the building and the windows and doors.

We are getting our fill of delicious seafood, more mussels and sashimi for lunch. The local mussels are huge and much larger than the ones from Prince Edward Island or New Zealand. We had them with a green curry sauce. We came back for dinner and I had delicious Pacific sole stuffed with crab and tiny shrimp and topped with a delicious sauce.

Craft beer and brew-pubs are very popular here so we have been doing are best to check them out.

We stopped by the ferry terminal to check the chances of getting on the ferry to Port Angeles, WA tomorrow since all the reserved slots were taken. They have some on a first-come, first-served basis. The attendant told us that we could put our car in line tonight and then come back in the morning but that didn't work well for us since our hotel is not that nearby. He also said that we could try at 7:30 in the morning (for the 10:30 departure) which we will try.  Failing that, there are other ferries from Sidney about 30 minutes north that go to Anacortes, WA (our first choice) or back to Vancouver.

Carmen in Chinatown

David with sashimi (and beer)


Street art









1 comment:

  1. Wonderful places. You've been covering the same ground that we did on the bus when I was playing with the band from Montreal.

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