Skip to main content

Seattle/Victoria Trip {Day 4}

Day four started in Victoria and ended in Seattle, with lots of activities in between.  We woke up to a bit of rain in Victoria, which was really the only rain we saw the whole trip.  It burned off really quickly and was a non-issue.  We went to breakfast at a place called John's Cafe.  We split the eggs benedict and waffle with cream cheese sauce.  You know I was happy that I was somewhere where there was royal news on the front page of the paper...
 
After breakfast we walked up the street to City Hall
 
 
 
Then we walked to China Town.
 
 
 
 
We continued to walk down Government Street with the intent of doing a little shopping.  Most stores weren't open yet.  It seems they like to get a late start and close early in Victoria!  Once we got closer to the Inner Harbour, the stores were starting to open.  We both bought caps, which came in very handy for our noon activity!
 
Our next stop was the Royal BC Museum which had a special exhibit called "Race to the End of the Earth" about the British and Norwegian race to be the first to the South Pole.
The view of Parliament from the museum
 
 
After the museum, we walked across the street and checked out of the hotel.  Here is a topiary at the hotel...
 
Then we grabbed lunch at a deli and headed to the Prince of Whales for our whale watch trip.  The water was super rough due to the high winds, which was just awesome considering we had 3 hours on the water for the whale watch and another 3 on the ferry back to Seattle!
 
Here were some views as we headed out from the harbour...
 
The airport
 
Fisherman's Wharf
(Can you imagine living here?  We were told these went for about $400,000)
 
A plane that had just landed and was headed for the airport
 
Then we headed out to Race Rocks Lighthouse in the Straight of Juan de Fuca

Here we saw elephant seals
 
 
some birds taking flight
and some harbor seals
Remember when I said in my previous post that they wanted us to take the zodiac tour instead of the bigger boat tour and we declined?  This is the zodiac they wanted to put us on.
 
Then it was time to go find some whales!
There are 3 pods that live in the area each summer.  They are called pods J, K, and L.
We located Pods J & L.  They were intermixed in a couple of locations
 
 
You can see the water was a little rough.  It made trying to find the whales a little more difficult.
They come up for air about 4 times, and then they dive and swim under water for about 4 minutes, so then you have to look for them to rise again.
 
 At this point, we were just off the San Juan Islands, which are actually part of Washington State.
 
Woo-hoo!
It was so cold!  I had a long sleeve t-shirt, a sweat shirt, and a pull-over on, and was still cold.  I was super sad my gloves were packed at the hotel.  It was so much fun though!

Here is a yacht that is sitting in the harbour.  The Athenia is the 4th largest sailing yacht in the world.

For less glamorous transportation, but I think so cute, you can take a water taxi
 
After we got back to dry land, we had about 3 hours before we had to catch the ferry back to Seattle.  There were several things we wanted to do, but we wanted to maximize our time in Victoria, so we decided to do the double decker bus tour of the city so that we could get a good overview of everything.  It left right from our hotel, and was leaving about 5 minutes after we walked up, so it was perfect.
 
 
We saw China Town again
The Chinese School for Children
 
 
We saw City Hall again too
 
We saw some of the pretty churches in Victoria. 
This is Christ Church Cathedral, an Anglican church.
 
Parliament again

We drove by a park where we saw some local wildlife
 
This is Entrance Island with its lighthouse and you can see the Olympic Mountains peeking out over the clouds.
 
After we were done with the tour, we did a little more shopping (hit up the Roots store, etc. that was closed earlier in the day), grabbed a quick bite, then collected our bags and headed to the Ferry.
 
We arrived back to Seattle about 9:30 p.m.  We collected our bags at the Edgewater and headed for a different hotel, The Inn at the Market.  I'll post more on the Inn in my next post, but here is the view from their 5th floor deck...
 
Stay tuned for Day 5!

Comments

Rebeka said…
I've actually never been to Victoria (but it's on my short list). It looks so pretty. And I would love to go whale watching. How fun that you got to go there on your Seattle trip!

Popular posts from this blog

Swiss Oatmeal {Copy Cat Recipe}

I'm obsessed with Swiss Oatmeal.  I particularly love   Corner Bakery's Swiss Oatmeal.  If you are not familiar with Swiss Oatmeal, it is a cold oatmeal cereal with fruit and nuts. I've had a similar recipe for years, but it was only similar.  It wasn't close enough for my liking.  So I finally set out into the land of Pinterest to find a recipe that was a good Copy Cat.  I found a few, combined them and came up with what I think is a very close Copy Cat Recipe of Corner Bakery's Swiss Oatmeal. Here's what I do (note, this recipe is really just pictures, because I don't really have measurements for these things.  The photos aren't great, but it's easier if I show you what I do)... Here's the Phase 1 ingredients...   Milk Honey Yogurt (I use a vanilla greek yogurt) Oats (old fashioned, not quick...you probably could do steel cut too)    I've simplified this to where you only need a bowl and a spoon for Phase 1 becau

Europe 2023 {Day 9 ~ Munich & Bavarian Alps}

 On Tuesday, December 20th I grabbed breakfast at the hotel and then walked about 15 minutes to where I met my tour for the day.  On my first visit to Munich, I only had time for one "day trip" outside of the city and I chose to go to Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial, but I always knew I wanted to venture down to the Bavarian Alps and see some castles on my next visit.  I had booked the premium tour and it was so fancy.  There was a snack bar and they even served beer and wine on the way home after the last stop of the day.  First stop was at Linderhof Castle. This was a "small" castle of King Ludwig's that was a partial mini-replica of Versailles.  It was a snowy walk to the castle... Interior photos were not allowed, but you can see some pics of the interior HERE Like Versailles, there are fountains and sculptures surrounding Linderhof, but they cover the statues with wood huts to protect them from the winter elements. After visiting Linderhof, we made a (to

It's all about the dress...

I mean I guess it's really all about getting married, but come on, you always anticipate the dress right?  Well holy moly folks!  Today a big secret was released to the press.  No, we still don't know which dress or tiara Kate will be wearing, but we heard for the first time that Princess Diana had a back-up dress!  Here are some of the pictures and sketches... Real dress on Left~ Back-up on the Right Here are the sketches of the back-up dress And you know what?  I like the back-up dress better than the one she wore!  I know, I know.  I'm going to get blasted for saying that, but I'll just confess it right now... My name is Kara and I've never thought Princess Diana's dress was all that and a bag of chips.  Nope.  Not my favorite Royal Wedding Dress by any stretch of the imagination.  What is my favorite?  Probably the one that Sarah Ferguson wore when she married Andrew... It had beautiful beading and stitching throughout.  Also on the train it had an &quo