"Playing" in a foreign country [lots of photos]

We returned Sunday late afternoon from a very fun week-end in Victoria, British Columbia (Canada).  It is so easy to get onboard the Victoria Clipper (a boat) and head north to Vancouver Island.  It takes about 2 1/2 hours and there you are.  Like so many other places, Victoria is the capital city, but not the largest.  The parliament buildings are most impressive,

Day 1

Day 2 - note blue sky

The Provincial museum is a MUST.  We managed to catch a national photography exhibition.  Broke for a little lunch and returned for more very interesting exhibits.  Lots of impressive art by the First Nations (People) of B.C.

On Saturday, we rented a car and drove north to the sweet little town of Sydney.  They have a small but very well exhibited aquarium.  [The nice lady at the door, learned that we were from Seattle, and told us to go 'slowly' and ask lots of questions - we presume because she thought we would not enjoy their aquarium which is much smaller than Seattle's.]

We managed to find a great lunch locale and the yummiest local bakery.  We enjoyed a little taste treat and then brought a few home with us, as well.

We then drove south for a visit to Craigdarroch Castle.  Most interesting place.  It started out being built as a private home - the owner died and only his wife and children ever lived in it, then it became a military hospital, a college, offices, a music conservatory and finally today is the home of the Historical Museum Society.

For those of us in the sewing community, two things were particularly interesting,

The lace curtains are being lovingly repaired by hand - 60 women have worked more than 700 hours thus far.






Sunday morning the phone rang early to inform us that because of an impending storm, the boat would be leaving 3 hours early.  We still got to enjoy a DimSum brunch in Chinatown and do a shorter version of downtown shopping.  We returned to pick up our luggage and headed to the boat for a somewhat choppy but perfectly manageable trip home.

Great fun, all around.  Thanks to Elaine for lots of these photos.