After a light breakfast at a local coffee shop, we checked out of our hotel room and headed downtown for some sightseeing. Fortunately, we were able to leave the car in the hotel garage. The first stop was the Parliament Buildings. It is a very impressive looking building built between 1893 – 1897 in the Neo Baroque as well as Romanesque and Renaissance Revival architectural styles. The timing was not good for us to take an indoor tour, but we were very happy with the self guided tour of the outside grounds. The front lawn included a statue of Queen Victoria and a monument honoring the Unknown Soldier as well as those British Columbia residents who died in World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and the Afghanistan War. The  Knowledge Totem Pole representing the oral traditions of the Indigenous Peoples is located here as well. The Centre Fountain also adorned the expansive front lawn. The back lawn had the the Victoria Centennial Fountain as well as impressive monuments honoring British Columbia law enforcement officers, Search and Rescue Volunteers, fire fighters, and paramedics who lost their lives while serving others. The Premier’s Rose Garden was was built in 1935 – 1936 as a Great Depression relief project. It is lovely and quite extensive. It seems like a wonderful place for Parliament members and their staff to relax in the midst of dealing with the issues and challenges of governing a province.

After wandering the Parliament grounds, we stopped off for a “cuppa” at a local restaurant where we planned our next move. That turned out to be the Royal BC Museum which is next door to the Parliament. The museum has a wonderful exhibit on indigenous cultures in BC and life like exhibits of marine and back country wildlife. The museum also hosts an IMAX theater where we watched an hour movie about the spirit bears of the rain forest in BC. The close up imagery of a female spirit bear (a pure white bear, not related to polar bears but related to black bears) first waking up from hibernation and seeking her first meal was spectacular and the story of the relation between the bears and the indigenous peoples was fascinating.

Following our visit to the museum, we opted to visit Beacon Hill park which is a very large park in the southeastern part of downtown Victoria. Part of the park is left in a natural state which provides an interesting contrast to the beautifully groomed section of the park with it’s gardens, ponds and fountains. It also hosts recreation areas for all ages.

Being pretty well exhausted by that time, we summoned an Uber to take us back to our hotel where we picked up our car and headed north to Nanaimo where the terminal for the ferry to Vancouver is located. At Nanaimo, we did a dry run to the ferry terminal to make sure we knew where to go and what to do when we got there. At this point, we were very happy we opted to stay in Nanaimo instead of Victoria as the only reservation we could get was on the 6:15 AM ferry (for which we have to be at the terminal at 5:15). The idea of leaving Victoria at 3:30 AM to arrive in time to catch the ferry was not a pleasant one. (Getting up at 4 was bad enough.) Following our dry run to the ferry terminal, we stopped for a bite to eat, headed to our lodging and tucked in for an early night.

Tomorrow we leave the Pacific Coast and officially head homeward.