Hi! And welcome to Day 2 of our Spring Break adventures! (If you missed it, you can read about Day 1 here.) On our second day we woke up early to catch the ferry from Port Angeles into Victoria, British Columbia for the day. Neither Allen nor myself knew much about Victoria before this trip…other than Allen’s mom recommending we go to high tea at the Empress. But we thought we’d make the most of it and see what the quaint town had to offer. Lo and behold, after spending only one day there, we both agreed it was our favorite stop of the whole trip! And I ended up taking so many photographs in Victoria that I’m going to split the day into two parts–Part 1 will cover breakfast and our walking tour of Victoria, while Part 2 will cover high tea at the Empress and exploring Fisherman’s Wharf! So let’s get right into it, shall we?
As you know from my previous post, we ended up staying in Port Angeles on Thursday night to make the early morning ferry call a little easier on ourselves. The silver lining of waking up before dawn to get on the ferry? …those sunrise views! Simply gorgeous!
Weeeeee! Here we go–driving onto the ferry boat! We were both actually really excited to be on the open water and I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was one of the highlights of our day.
Since we were one of the first people on the boat, we had plenty of time to take in the beautiful views of the Olympic National Park mountains while still docked at Port Angeles. We both agreed that we need to come back in the summertime to explore more of the park.
He may look a little sleepy in this picture, but boy oh boy was Allen stoked to be on the boat! He was like a little kid in a candy store!! There were several times I “lost him” because he was roaming all over and exploring every nook and cranny of the ferry. Haha! Happy Allen!
I was pretty happy too! Growing up, my family spent a lot of time on the lake. So riding in a boat and being on the water always takes me back to my childhood and carefree weekends swimming at the lake.
P.S. – So, so thankful I was wearing a warm coat, scarf, and beanie! It was deceivingly cold on the open water!
Love how happy Allen looks in these pictures. Makes my heart so happy.
Spring Break looks good on us, doesn’t it?! I had just turned in my midterm project earlier that morning before venturing out to the ferry (it was a really early morning). So I felt particularly carefree and excited to just enjoy the break from school work.
The ferry ride from Port Angeles to Victoria lasted around 1.5 hours and was priced well (more info here). There are also longer rides that leave directly out of Seattle and take roughly 2.5 hours. But since we were already in the Olympic Peninsula region, we opted for the cheaper, faster ride out of Port Angeles. Allen reserved our spot online prior to arriving, which I would recommend since it can get pretty busy.
And here’s our first view of Victoria from the boat! Isn’t she pretty?! We didn’t know it at the time, but this area is called Fisherman’s Wharf and we would naturally find our way back here later in the evening.
Since we had been preoccupied with finishing my midterm project and making the ferry on time that morning, we hadn’t had a chance to eat breakfast (or get coffee!). So we searched for a good, local breakfast spot to eat at as our first order of business.
John’s Place was one of the most highly rated local spots we found, and so we headed straight there! (Jam Cafe, Blue Fox Cafe, and Floyd’s Diner also looked like great options! And we almost stopped into Wildfire Bakery on our way to John’s.)
Allen’s not a fan of coffee, so when I want to order something to split with him, I usually go with a spicy chai tea latte. Ohhhh and it was soooo good! Just what an early morning called for.
The vibe inside John’s place was super eclectic and very down-to-earth. Without even realizing it, it was exactly the kind of place I imagined any Canadian restaurant to be–overly friendly, community-centered, and with a ton of charm.
Me, looking a little tired but so so excited to be in Canada!
Somewhat random, but how cute are these little bears on the peanut butter packets?! I mean…so adorable, no?
For breakfast, Allen and I ordered two different dishes to split–the Belgian Waffle with cream cheese syrup and the Yidish Columbia Eggs Benedict, which came with potato pancakes and sliced Montreal smoked meat. Both were very, very delicious!
After breakfast we decided to head to our hotel so that we could park the rental car for the day and walk around town. Armed with nothing more than the cartoon map provided to us on the ferry boat (which was actually really good!), we set out to explore the town of Victoria. Luckily for us, the cherry blossoms were in full bloom around the city and made for an absolutely gorgeous scene to roam around in!
At times, the entire sidewalk and street was covered in the prettiest pink flower bud confetti, as if spring had burst from the sky and a celebration was in progress.
I’m not sure if I mentioned this before or not, but we were pretty much flying by the seat of our pants when it came to this trip. Yes, we had outlined a general set of places we wanted to go and things we wanted to see, but none of the details were hashed out. And for us, that was just exactly what we wanted. It gave us the chance to just roam around the city and explore it for ourselves without the added pressure of doing this or that–to just enjoy the simple little quirks we found while exploring.
So after breakfast we took a self-guided walking tour around the city, starting from our hotel, The Strathcona, and walking along Douglas Street toward Chinatown (near the intersection of Fisgard and Government Streets). I’ve mapped out a rough idea of the route we took here. (P.S. – I would highly recommend The Strathcona if you are looking for a nice place to stay in Victoria! We were only there one night, but it was one of my favorites of the whole trip.)
How cool is this colorful puzzle piece cross walk we found along the way?!
And we also passed by a seriously cool looking book store as well. How amazing is this entrance?!
We also found a little plaza area with some really interesting totem poles to look at. The Northwestern coastal region is known for their native totem poles, so it was really neat to see them all over the place throughout our entire trip in the area.
And then we found Victoria’s Chinatown! I had never really been to a Chinatown before, so this was my first experience with it. Turns out this area was a place where Chinese immigrants from California congregated after the discovery of gold in the Fraser Canyon in 1858. This Chinatown in particular is also the oldest Chinatown in Canada and the 2nd oldest in North America (only 2nd to the one in San Francisco!). Needless to say, it was a pretty neat place to explore while we were in Victoria.
What to do in Chinatown? Go into the local market of course! When in doubt, the answer is always food. Hahaha! You know there’s bound to be tons of interesting finds in the Chinatown market.
I really, really wanted to get my dad (and myself :P) some of these chocolate-orange pocky, but the store didn’t take Visa credit cards and I had yet to get any Canadian money yet.
Noodle packages the size of your head too!
I also loved looking at all the beautifully ornate lanterns hanging outside very shop. They were quite alluring to look at.
As we continued walking, we found a long passage that reminded me far too much of Harry Potter not to go exploring down it.
The little alleyway ended up leading to a bunch of little shops and apartments, all of which were closed. But it just goes to show that you never know what’s around the corner until you check it out for yourself! Like this little chalk drawing of Saturn that made my inner space nerd very happy!
After Chinatown we headed straight for the water, walking along Wharf Street. We would occasionally venture in a street or two to see what was happening on the inside, but most of the time we just stuck to the water front. Watching the boats on the water was so much fun!
The Johnson Street Bridge in the picture below is known for its resemblance to a horse. The horse’s face is actually a counterweight used to lift the bridge up to allow large boats to pass underneath. Kinda neat, no?!
From Wharf Street, there’s a little pedestrian pathway that you can walk along that runs right up against the water. And that’s what we took as long as we could until we hit Government Street near the Empress Hotel, where we would be having afternoon tea in just a few short hours. The water was so, so pretty though and we definitely took our time walking and exploring along the pathway.
I had to stop to get a picture with the Canadian moose, right?! Ahh! Moosies make me so happy!
From the pedestrian pathway along the water, we could see the beautiful British Columbia Legislative building in the distance. And so we walked toward that next.
This was probably the most beautiful building I saw on our entire trip. So regal and elegant. Unfortunately at this point, we had to book it back to our hotel to get all fancy for afternoon tea. But if we had more time, we would’ve loved to look around more in this area, as well as to have gone to the Royal British Columbia Museum right next door. Alas! I guess we’ll just have to come back another time!
After snapping a few pictures, we headed back to the hotel in preparation for high tea at the Empress, which I’ll be covering in the next post! So stay tuned for the conclusion of our day trip in Victoria, B.C.!
Overall I loved our little self-guided walking tour of the city. It was the perfect way to get acquainted with the town and to take in all the new sights, sounds, and culture around us. Sometimes I like self-guided, impromptu things like this even better than group-led, more well-planned tours that don’t give as authentic a feel (i.e. feel a little touristy). That’s not to say I wouldn’t love to go on a tour of Victoria to learn even more in the future! But I sure did love exploring Victoria on our own for our first time visiting.
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