Victoria – September 16-19, 2009 (Part One)

Well, I figured this would happen. As soon as I hit school for Fall term last year, the inundation of reading and writing (no arithmetic!) pretty much killed my desire to work on my next blog installment. And once on winter break, I essentially avoid using my brain as much as possible. Excuses, excuses annnnnd…suddenly, it’s almost a year later. Without further ado, let me present Victoria, BC…

Ah, Victoria! Land of sun, palm trees and sandy beaches. No, really – as evidence, I present to you Exhibit A:

 

Victoria likes to think of itself as the banana belt of Canada, and for good reason – its location on the Pacific keeps winters mild, while the mountain ranges nearby shield it from excessive rain (half the precipitation of Vancouver).  Summer days, though, rarely peak above 75 degrees, and when we were visiting, temps were mostly in the upper 60s. This must be considered a heat wave to Victorians, as an unusually high proportion of people were walking around shirtless, baring their pasty Canadian flesh. I now wonder if the same thing happens up in Barrow, AK, on those rare summer days when the temperature eclipses 50 degrees.

Being the tropical island escape that it is, there are only a couple of different ways to reach Victoria – ferry or plane. When Victoria was founded, it was voted “Most Likely to Become the Preeminent City of Western Canada” by its classmates. When Vancouver stole the title after the transcontinental railroad reached it, Victorian officials were surely flummoxed by the unwillingness of the railroad to build a 20+ mile long bridge to the island.  

There are multiple ferry routes to Victoria from Washington state, and we chose to drive the scenic four hours to Port Angeles, a town that is beautifully framed by the Olympic Mountains, but is otherwise unremarkable. So much so, that the Visitor Center is plastered with posters of what to do…in Victoria. Travel tip: We had parked our car in the Budget garage across the street from the ferry terminals. It was $11/day, which is pretty reasonable considering the cost of transporting a car on the ferry and having to pay for parking at a hotel in Victoria. On the ferry, we were told by a frequent traveler that there is another lot just a few blocks further down that only charges $6/day. D’oh!

It had been chilly and drizzly on the way up to Port Angeles, but after the ferry departed, the clouds began to break, leading to this series of beautiful shots (100% nature’s talent, not mine). I cannot attribute the cup of hot chocolate to the breaking clouds, but it too is a beautiful shot.

Not quite halfway across the strait, Mike excitedly noted a small boat speedily trailing us (below). More fearsome than those notorious Somali pirates are the pirates of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, who usually target ferries carrying hot chocolate (pun regretfully intended). Mike clapping with delight all the while, our brave captain took evasive maneuvers and we quickly shook off the scourge of the strait (pun this time completely unintended).

The entire trip is not much more than an hour or hour and a half, so not long after the cup of hot chocolate was empty, we were rounding into the harbor, which bustled with boats and float planes.

The inner harbo(u)r is like the Canada pavilion at Epcot took over the entire World Showcase lagoon. It’s so perfectly contained, so well-stocked with quaint architecture on all sides.

 

Really, you’d think there was going to be a nightly fireworks spectacular, just like at a Disney park. Victoria didn’t fail to meet expectations, as we later would see a sign in the window of the visitor’s center advertising weekly fireworks. Now, I could have sworn that was for the lagoon…uh…harbour, but research after the fact only shows a weekly firework display at Butchart Gardens, which is not in the city.

It was a zippy stroll from the dock to our hotel, the Helm’s Inn – maybe just five minutes. The property is not impressive on the outside – you could call it vintage if you believe late ‘40s to ‘60s architecture deserves that designation. We had chosen this spot due to its excellent TripAdvisor reviews that reflected recent remodeling of the rooms, and a truly unbeatable price. Whereas most properties in the central city still considered the time frame we visited as part of the high season, Helm’s Inn’s rates had dropped to off-season the week prior.

The lady checking into the hotel in front of us thoughtfully asked the front desk clerk, “Where is the street with the shops?” It struck us that we had not prepared ourselves by locating this street ahead of time, so we awaited the answer breathlessly, pencil in hand to jot down the directions. It says a lot about the state of customer service these days that the clerk was completely clueless, dimly repeating “The street with the shops?” I mean, come ON, do we need to spell this out for you? T-H-E street with T-H-E shops. We’re on an island, this can’t be that difficult! The lady checking in patiently tried to help trigger the clerk’s memory, saying, “There’s supposed to be a street, with these shops…” I thought that this would do it, as you cannot be any more clear. The clerk had the nerve to then suggest “Well, there’s lots of shopping here in several different places.” Oh, no, no, no, no, no. There’s no need to complicate this, madam clerk. You now have a line of people (okay, the lady in front of us and then us) whose entire trips hinge on finding this damn street. It ended with the clerk pointing uselessly at a couple of spots on a map to the lady, who was surely already penning her TripAdvisor.com review of the hotel in her head.

As we moved up to check in, I wondered if a dose of Keeg charm might do the trick. I batted my baby browns and said, lustily, “So, where’s the street with the shops?” I even arched my brows a couple of times. Winked. Rested my chin on my knuckles and pursed my lips. Still, nothing. Utter incompetence, or so we thought. As we came to discover, there were multiple streets with multiple shops after all. I hope you were sitting when you read that, because it blew our minds.

Here’s the exterior of the building we were in. Such a forced cuteness. Bored.

But hey, the rooms were plenty nice, with separate living area and bedroom. Keep this place in mind if you plan to stay for a longer period of time and want to cook, as the rooms had a pretty significant kitchen space:

 

 

‘twas dinner time. I had already done a little research on a couple of places I wanted to hit. There aren’t a ton of reviews to go off of up there, but one nearby Chinese place, J & J Wonton Noodle House, had gotten some good write-ups. I don’t think I can describe how incredibly good this place smelled when we walked in. We ended up being disappointed, and you can read my yelp review here.

We wandered through town for a little bit that evening, getting our first view of the Parliament Building all lit up:

As we wandered, we passed a girl who was clearly not having a great night. She was on her phone, loudly and dramatically going through what was probably the breakup of a relationship. This would not be worth mentioning had we not passed another girl two nights later who was similarly in histrionics on the phone. She was in a party dress, and I get the impression she had either been ditched or was given some compelling reasons to do the ditching. Such drama in this little old British port!

We also passed a conversation that was clearly staged for our benefit (not unlike the galloping moose in the Anchorage blog). We were walking toward a girl, probably not out of her early 20s and her friend, who were quite animated over what must have been a fascinating conversation. As we passed, I picked up on the words “pink polka dotted tea kettle”. I tell you, folks, how former-British-Colony-Victoria is THAT? In all my years, I’ve never passed anyone having a spirited conversation about a tea kettle, but here, it was done.

Part two to come – thanks for reading!