Victoria on Vancouver Island
The Capital of Canada's British Columbia
Standing at the Inner Harbour beside the statue of Captain Cook and looking at the Edwardian facade of the Fairmont Empress Hotel it is easy to picture elegant ladies and gentlemen dressed in that period. Then, looking to the right there is the very English looking Government Building.
It is hardly surprising that these two buildings look like English transplants. Both were designed by an Englishman - Francis Rattenbury.
The Fairmont Empress Hotel
The hotel is elegance personified and to visit it for afternoon tea is to be wafted back in time.
For lunch or dinner in this charming hotel the choice is between The Empress Room - very impressive with tapestried walls and a carved mahogany ceiling, or The Bengal Lounge - maybe for a curry.
Around the British Columbia Museum
The Inner Harbour area has lots of conveniently located things to do and see. For example, there is the modern British Columbia Museum which houses the State's history from the First People to the present.
Outside is Thunderbird Park with an exhibition of totem poles and an Indian crafts center.
A short walk away is the Helmcken House.Dr. Helmcken was an Englishman and, as well as all things medicinal, he was involved in local politics. He was instrumental in negotiating British Columbia's union with Canada in 1871. He lived in this house from 1852 until his death in 1920. (There is an excellent self-guided tour of the house.)
Butchart Gardens
A bus ride away from the center of Victoria are the wonderful Butchart Gardens. These originated with Mrs. Jenny Butchart in 1940 when a friend gave her some sweet peas and a rose for the garden of her new house. She freely admitted at the time that she knew nothing about gardening.
To see the gardens now it is difficult to believe that. With her diligence a series of gardens gradually surrounded the house. Between it and her husband's cement works was a quarry which supplied limestone for the cement.
It is the quarry that became the vast and spectacular Sunken Garden. Rocks were gathered together and piled in various locations, some to make rockeries, some to form raised flower beds, and others for edging purposes.
Tons of topsoil was brought in from a neighboring farm and sites for tree planting were carefully chosen.
It must have been quite a sight to see Jenny Butchart at work on the grim gray walls of the quarry. She had a bosun's chair rigged so that she tuck ivy into any suitable crack or crevice.
The first view of the Sunken Garden is from above. With the backcloth of trees - dark and light green foliage, gray-green, gold, yellow and dark red, the spectacle is breathtaking. A stone path winds between immaculately shaven lawns containing flowerbeds. Everywhere is a mass of color.
One very deep section of the quarry was lined and filled with water, providing a limpid lake fed by a waterfall and a stream. And here are the fabulous Ross Fountains.
Whatever the season Butchart Gardens is spectacular.
There are many more delights in Victoria. For more information contact the tourism information board.
Victoria is one of the ports of call for several cruise liners.
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