Victoria, British Columbia

We decided that since we were pretty close, that we'd spend a day in Canada. We got up at 5:15 am so that we could drive 2 hours to catch the ferry. It was about an hour ferry ride across the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It was a pretty foggy and cold morning so we didn't see much on the crossing but the view once we got to Victoria was pretty cool.Victoria was such a beautiful city. We both agreed that this was our favorite day. There were castle-like hotels all over. This one is the most famous, it's called the Empress Hotel. I loved the ivy crawling up the outside of the building.There were also totem poles everywhere in the city. We eventually learned that Vancouver Island was originally inhabited by Indians so much of the island maintains an Indian influence. The totem poles were pretty cool-you can tell how tall this one is by how small we are!We had time to tour the BC Museum. I haven't been to many museums but this was by far the best museum I've ever been to. They had amazing old photos that they restored and blew up all over the walls. I could have stared at them the whole time we were there. Justin enjoyed the animal and science exhibits the most. What a scary mammoth!We each tried impersonating the sea lions-I think I won...We had to take a picture by the huge "I Was Here" mural in front of the museum that features many famous Canadians. I couldn't fit the whole thing in my camera (it was pretty big!). Justin was relieved that he stood by someone cool like Sarah McLachlan rather than someone boring.This place was really pretty-I would love to go back and spend a week there. We only had one day to squeeze it all in. We finally got back to our room at 10:00 that night so it was a really long day, but well worth it! So we say, Hat's Off to Canada!

Butchart Gardens

The main reason we went to Victoria was to see the Butchart Gardens. It had been recommended by a few people and it did not disappoint! We have many pictures from our visit there but the pictures don't give it justice. This place is amazing! I have never seen anything like it and probably never will. We were there for about 3 hours and I don't think we saw one patch of dirt. It is just covered with flowers everywhere. Big, blooming flowers like this:The smell was so intoxicating. I would have loved to be able to bottle up the smell and bring it home with me!The Gardens consists of 5 smaller gardens, a few ponds, some restaurants, and a gift shop (can't leave that out!). The first garden we visited was called the Sunken Garden. We were just nonchalantly walking along the path when, BOOM, out of nowhere we come across this view:We were seriously blown away by the beauty. We snuck into this little old cabin to snap a few pictures.There were stairs everywhere in this garden leading up the lookout, down into the gardens, up once again to get a view of the Ross Fountain. The paths wound around-we kept going back to made sure we hadn't missed anything! We were amazed at the lily pads-I don't know if you can tell, but they are even placed in a certain way.Even the garbage cans had blooming flowers on the top of them! At the end of the gardens, you walk up another set of winding stairs and you see this view of Ross Fountain-pretty cool, eh? The next garden that we came upon was the Rose Garden. Although smaller than the very large Sunken Garden, it is no less beautiful or impressive. It was filled with thousands of roses.All along the path were these cool arches that were covered in roses.I didn't know that there was such a variety of roses! Each type of rose was named as well as when it was inducted into the American Rose Society. I had fun reading all the names and laughing at a few!(Sorry about all the pictures of me! Justin kept saying he didn't want to ruin the beauty of the roses. As if!)

At the end of the Rose Garden was the Sturgeon Fountain. What's a sturgeon? The bronze for this statue was cast in Italy...Just a little FYI.The next garden we came to was the Japanese Gardens. This garden was just green, green, green everywhere. To get there we had to walk down these cool steps:Justin especially enjoyed these gardens because of his affinity to Asian things. We couldn't figure out what the ground cover was but it smelled delicious! Like you could use it in cooking. I'm not sure what Justin's running away from?The back of the Japanese Garden borders Butchart Cove. We found the tiniest little hole in the bushes that looked out on the water.The Japanese Garden was full of little streams and ponds with either stepping stones or bridges that we walked across. The next garden was the Italian Garden. The scent here was so good! I think it was more pungent because it was a more enclosed space. We walked through a wall of bushes and found this statueand then continued on to the flowers. It was small but pretty nonetheless. After the Italian Garden was the Mediterranean Garden. This mostly consisted of a big open area of grass with benches. I think it was intended as a rest place more than anything.

Wow, this place was definitely worth getting up at 5:00 to catch the ferry to Canada! We would recommend that everyone tries to get here once in their life! You'll be blown away, just like we were.