Walking around the town of Victoria...and some driving around too!

First of all we decided to have a closer look at Parliament House...so the walk took as past all those lovely gardens we saw the night before and a rather lovely sculpture.

This piece was made to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the Canadian Navy in 2010. Before that, the Royal Navy took care of Canada.

I just loved this sculpture of a navy dad home on leave greeting his daughter and the pet dog looks pretty excited too!

The look of sheer joy on his face! Beautiful!

Not a good photo unfortunately, but in his bag he has a teddy poking out of a side pocket and a small gift box...presents for the little girl and her mum??

As we continued walking we also passed by a large mooring area...

There were even seaplanes!

We saw a number of totem poles like this one, dotted around the park surrounding Parliament House.

Some more gardens!

We noticed that there was a vignette presentation outside Parliament House in 45 minutes time...so we wandered off to fill in time.

We saw the horses that are used for the 'carriage rides'...

Statues...this one is Queen Victoria...

And even Captain James Cook has a statue in this area...

In the next block from Parliament House, we came across this...

Each of those shield/crests represent the Provinces of Canada.

So then it was time to stroll back at Parliament House for the Vignette Presentation.

It's quite an impressive building.

And we were soon seated on the front steps ready for the hourly vignette presentation. This gave us lots of information about the building and some of the history of British Columbia. It was very entertaining! 

The actor on the left was playing Francis Rattenbury, the architect of this building; he was 25 when he designed this grand place. The actor in the rather dashing full length red cape is playing Mary Ellen Smith, the first woman to be elected to parliament in British Columbia. 

By then it was time to wander back to the carpark before our paid up time expired! So then Nik drove us to  Craigdarroch Castle a stately home built by a 'coal baron'.

It was late in the day so we just enjoyed the house by walking around the outside of it. It was pretty impressive looking. 

Our next stop on Vancouver Island was a visit to the famous Butchart Gardens...but that deserves a post all of its own. So that will come next! 

First day in Canada; Victoria...

We've been in Canada now for just under a week, but this is the first post to be published about this part of our holiday. Just like our time in the US, we are packing in all the experiences we can! 

Another one of our dreadful 'selfies'; this is DH and I at Long Beach Airport at 6 am last Tuesday morning.

So now, finally, a post about Canada. We flew here on Tuesday morning for a wonderful reunion with Miss Nikki aka DsD3. She had left for Canada in March 2014 so it had been a while.

As soon as we left the airport, we headed for the ferries to travel to Victoria on Vancouver Is. 

After you have your tickets, and have parked in the allocated line, you can leave your car and go to where the shops are...we had some coffee while we waited.

I've said before that DH and I aren't very good with 'selfies'...

Here we are driving towards the ferry where we parked on one of the lower levels and then went upstairs...

The journey is leisurely, taking an hour and a half to complete.

Until it got too cold, we stood on one of the decks...

Some 'girl talk'...

Lovely views...

And here we are on Vancouver Island, destination, Victoria. 

After a rather late lunch we checked into our hotel and had a bit of a rest after our 3.45 am start that day! And then we went for a walk around a few streets in the town centre. 

Then down towards the waterfront...parliament house...

Gorgeous gardens in the public areas. 

The Empress, one of the lovely Fairmont Hotels...

In fact flowers outside businesses like this restaurant...

A horse drawn carriage clip clopping through the streets...

While checking out the street lined with shops, we came across a bear!

We headed back to our hotel eventually, but we went exploring more of this area on Wednesday...so, as I often say, stay tuned!