To commemorate Ailie and Claire finishing elementary school (one finished, one about to finish) we took them on a little trip. We’d like to do something similar in three years for Max and Elly when they finish elementary school.

(Above) Getting dropped off at the airport. Cute ladies. At this point, we still hadn’t told them where we were going.

Waiting to board.

On the plane to Seattle. We didn’t fly straight to Victoria or Vancouver because plane tickets were much more expensive. Also, you only need a birth certificate to cross the border by land or sea, but you need an actual passport to cross by air, so this let us work around them not having passports.

The next morning—looking at the ferry we’d shortly be taking from Port Angeles, WA to Victoria, BC.

After boarding…

Coming into Victoria harbor—this is the breakwater, which we’ll walk out to at sunset later in the week.

Victoria skyline as our ferry makes its way into dock.

One of Victoria’s famed pickle boats.

First stop after FINALLY getting through immigration and customs was lunch!

Ailie’s hummus and chips.

Claire’s incredible onion rings. Maybe the best onion rings i’ve ever had. Nicely crisp on the outside, but also don't just slide/crumble apart when you bit them.

Lego model of the Chateau Victoria Hotel In the lobby.

Walking by the Empress Hotel later that afternoon (we’ll come back for afternoon tea the next day).

Enjoying some lackluster gelato.

Awesome view of the BC Parliament from the balcony of our room at the Chateau Victoria.

Night-time view after swimming that night (we had the whole pool to ourselves—it was awesome). Take note of the BC Parliament lit up on the left side of the image.

At Beacon Hill Park the next morning. Just a free city park with lots of lovely gardens, greens, flowers, and wildlife.

Here we are at our tea sitting at afternoon tea at the Empress Hotel. We all got a different type of tea and had fun trying the different varieties. The food was excellent! I have to say that I enjoyed the food at this one more than the one we did in London, but the experience at the place in London was definitely a notch above.

Properly sipping her tea.

(Above) The gluten-full option…

The gluten-free option for Amanda.

Atrium on the back of the Empress Hotel.

Dressed-up ladies portrait out front.

After tea we visited the grounds and toured the interior of Hatley Castle (the shooting location for Professor Xavier’s school in the X-Men movies). The grounds were cool, but the tour of the interior bored us all to tears. 😬

We went to the Fisherman’s Wharf in Victoria Harbor for dinner. We had incredible fish and chips (Amanda and I, that is—Ailie enjoyed her salsa and Claire enjoyed her ice cream). It’s essentially a little food market with a bunch of colorful floating houses all around.

The coleslaw was even delicious (and you know how I generally feel about mayo).

Then a sunset visit back to Beacon Hill Park and a walk out to the Victoria Harbor Breakwater.

The next morning we headed right over to Butchart Gardens. Butchart were the inspiration for Thanksgiving Point’s Ashton Gardens. Less sprawling than Ashton Gardens, but definitely more striking overall (and we love Ashton Gardens). Also, I promise this is a very small selection of all of the pictures we took of flowers, etc. So, just the highlights—promise.

(Above and below) View down into the Sunken Garden.

(Above) Entering the Japanese Garden.

(Below) Walking the Todd Creek Trestle which used to be an old train trestle that’s been converted to a walking/bike path called the Galloping Goose. We wished we’d had more time so we could’ve biked it—that would’ve been pretty cool!

A peek at the Sooke Potholes near the bike path.

The next morning we boarded another ferry from Victoria to Vancouver. This ship was much larger than the other ferry we took from Port Angeles. The whole process also seemed to go much smoother (though, excluding an international border crossing probably helped with that). First, though, pastries:

(Above) We found a rare, awesome gluten free bakery that we visited each morning. Amanda found their breakfast quiches particularly delicious.

Us gluten eaters routinely went to a bakery by our hotel called Crust. Everything we tried there was great, but favorites were the chocolate croissants, cronuts, and sour cherry and lemon cream cheese danishes (not pictured).

This larger Ferry had a full-service cafeteria.

These narrow passages through the San Juan islands were navigated expertly by the ferry’s pilot (they do it all manually)—even with tight squeezes with other ships coming the opposite direction

Lots of cool cabins tucked into the trees on all of the islands we passed.

Using the railing to keep the camera steady…

After arriving in Vancouver, we had lunch and rented bikes to ride around Stanley Park—one of our favorite things we did the entire trip. The bike rental was crazy cheap and the bike paths and views of Vancouver Harbor and the Lions Gate Bridge were awesome!

(Above) Great views of the city and lots of seaplanes

Lions Gate Bridge

(Below) This is a Great Blue Heron I spotted on a rock in the harbor. Caught it diving into the water to catch a fish (only regret was having to frame the whole thing from on top of the sea wall). Click to enlarge.

More shots of the Lions Gate Bridge

View out towards English Bay

After the bike ride around Stanley Park we went over to the Capilano Suspension Bridge park, which was super cool.

The suspension bridge. A little bouncy when you walk across it, but it also felt nice and strong. In years past, they’ve had massive trees fall over on it in storms and it’s held. Apparently it could hold a jet.

The view while crossing

Up on the treetop walk. Reminiscent of an Ewok village.

Another Great Blue Heron.

Descending to the Cliffwalk—also super cool.

Cool bridge on the way out of Vancouver as we returned to Seattle to fly out the next morning:

We had a really wonderful time! Vancouver is somewhere we’d love to go again in the future. Reminiscent of the Columbia River Gorge, but with some other interesting opportunities nearby as well.

British Columbia 2023