James Bay

Victoria is Western Canada oldest city and the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia (off of the Southern tip of Vancouver Island on the Pacific Coast). Victoria is an island between the calm waters of the Salish Sea and the rainforests of Vancouver Island. The city has a population of 91,867 (greater Victoria has 397,237 people).
In 1843 Fort Victoria was erected as a fur trading post and Europeans eventually built local relationships with First Nation Indians here which became present day downtown Victoria.

Known as "the Garden City" as well as a city with an English flair but in a very relaxing atmosphere, it is a big visitor destination from all over the world. Victoria is a beautiful city and in the top twenty of world cities for quality-of-life. We could see why as we walked around and met people. We may have not gotten to the famous Butchart Gardens, but we did have our own garden tour of beautiful flowers all over the city and parks (see photos). The annual flower bloom count for 2022 was 27,875,292,158. No, I don’t know how they count them.

We walked from the ship into town, taking one of the three routes, the scenic one, to the waterfront and Fisherman’s Wharf, the harbor and watched the ferries. An area with lots of restaurants on the water and many interesting boats in the water (not to mention the dancing taxis). Then we spent the afternoon at the Victoria Pride Parade (see photos) sponsored every year by the Victoria Pride Society and this year with over 125 organizations and businesses sponsoring floats, displays and dance routines along the parade route followed by a festival with 150 vendors. Thousands of people lined the parade route for the 2-hour long parade ... we were part of the crowd for the entire parade.

From there we went into the Fairmont Empress Hotel (opened in 1908) facing the Inner harbor where we did some exploring of this beautiful old hotel and met some friends having high tea with their relatives in town, not to mention many other ship friends.

We proceeded to walk the area and see the statues, Parliament buildings, the Royal BC Museum and then got a good tip from Boris and Sonia. They sent us to the Beacon Hill Park and its beautiful flowers, gardens, fountains and music so we spent an hour walking around that park and coming out at the Mile Zero Monument (Mile 0 of the Trans-Canada Highway - over 5,000 miles across the entire length of Canada). On our way back, we took a route along the Breakwater back to the ship. Beautiful city and wonderfully relaxing day.Read more