12th August - Leaving Vancouver

This morning we traveled by ferry from Vancouver to Victoria.  The ferry actually leaves from Tsawwassen which is about an hour out of Vancouver, and arrives at Swartz Bay (which is also about an hour out of Victoria). BC Ferries operate a connector bus that picks up from downtown Vancouver and rolls onto the ferry, then rolls off the ferry and drives on to the downtown Victoria bus station.  The ferry ride itself is another 90 minutes, so altogether it was about 3.5 hours travel time and we didn't get into Victoria until early afternoon.

We checked into our hotel:  The Empress.  This is an iconic hotel and I've always wanted to stay here.  The rooms are beautifully decorated, but not that large (which I suppose is inevitable with a Victorian building).

Later in the afternoon we took advantage of the glorious weather to go for a horse and carriage ride around some of the older neighbourhoods.  Our horse was called Sam and he was a sweetie.

In the evening we took a walk along the seafront and watched some sea planes taking off from Victoria Harbour Airport.  We ended up at a nice seafood restaurant called Finn's with a lovely view of the harbour, where we had supper.