Holiday – Victoria – Andrena Teed

Our drive to Victoria was rather tense with inclement weather, but not all holiday challenges are negative. Challenges can have positive effects. The road to Victoria presented some difficult challenges – rain, snow, more rain.

We arrived in the dark, booked in to our hotel, and woke up to a new continuum.

We had a few items on our ‘to-do’ list, but mainly we were on holiday, exploring a new location. We are not generally city people, but Victoria is a tourist friendly city. Our hotel was located at a deceptively desolate looking junction but it’s where several buses pass, making tourist transportation easy.

And for our amusement, we could Christmas shop at the local car dealer, just across the street.

Down the road, less than ten minutes walk, was a large shopping mall, Mayfair Mall. We went there one day, and that was enough for us. We are not accustomed to these large shopping malls, and it did not feel comfortable to us. We did, however, find new boots. We also had a mani-pedi each, so we could put ‘new’ feet into those boots. That, with a hot stone massage, was a pleasure.

We had booked some activities. First up was panto presented by a community theatre, We had been very involved with community theatre in Gaborone, many years ago now. We met on stage at a panto, actually, so that type of production is a favourite of ours for nostalgic reasons. This specific panto was new to us, and it was a fine production.

We attended an organ concert at Christ Church Cathedral. The organ is famous – Hellmuth Wolff, Opus 47, 2005. It has a magnificent sound. The concert: La Nativité du Seigneur by Olivier Messiaen. Nine movements with accompanying Biblical texts. It was not easy listening, like Nine Lessons and Carols, but it was wonderful.

Of course we booked tickets for The Nutcracker at the Royal Theatre. What a theatre! Gilded décor, velvet curtains, opulence galore. The Nutcracker is a classic Winter Holiday season ballet. This interpretation was a delight. The set was sparse because the backdrop provided all the atmosphere needed for the production. We loved it!

Ah, those are the joyous aspects of a city-based holiday. Somehow, small villages do not seem to have the wherewithall to produce stage productions. Our city holidays always include at least one concert or stage performance. Lucky us, we had three events during this holiday.

Of course we did other tourist activities. We spent a day at the museum – some wonderful, realistic dioramas there.

And John Lennon’s car.

Of course we went to Chinatown. It was much more compact than expected, but there were the usual open stalls at the shops,

and very narrow streets that opened to sky-lit courtyards.

We had a look at the famous Empress Hotel. We did not take tea in the vestibule. Years ago I did that, but it has now become rather overpriced we reckoned.

Nearby we saw a statue of Emily Carr, a renown local artist from Victoria during the last century. She is one of my favourite of the Group-of-Seven era artists. This was fun for me. I like it when artists are commemorated.

We examined the entries in a gingerbread house competition. Both of us liked this unusual construction – containers making a housing complex. Very contemporary. Potentially the housing of the near future.

Of course we enjoyed the Christmas lights everywhere. They are always jolly and bright, and add to the festive atmosphere during this season. At one location, there was a large, extravagantly decorated tree, cited atop one of those compasses that points directions and distances to well known cities around the world. Nigel stood looking towards the southern hemisphere, to a place where he lived and worked for several years. Johannesburg is near enough to where we met, and lived for several years.

One highlight – we connected with our cousin. He is not actually a related cousin, but he is the step-brother of my first cousin, so in a greater sense he is also our cousin. We enjoyed a tasty lunch, and fabulous conversation with him one afternoon. We were at the Bard and Banker, a former bank turned into a pub in downtown Victoria. The Bard is Robert Service, one of my favourites. He is known for his poems about the Yukon, where he was a banker. He was also a banker at this place, when it was a CIBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce).

Remember when banks had a granite entrance festooned with their name and emblem. In keeping with that, the pub has a similar grand entrance.

Victoria is walkable. We walked here and there. At one point we found ourselves at the beginning of the Trans-Canada Trail. Or the end, depending on where you start walking. We’ve both walked along sections of the Trail, so this large placard was rather amusing, and interesting to us.

That well groomed walking trail is a recent-ish walking route in Canada. The early explorers, and the fur traders walked or paddled canoes everywhere .

In downtown Victoria, there are remnants of Fort Victoria, the Hudson’s Bay Company trading post that was built in 1843. Two solitary mooring rings are all that remain of the fort that once was a main depot for the Pacific fur trade. Those dates are recent considering the longevity of the fur trade European settlement of Canada.

One of my great-uncles came to BC with the Hudson’s Bay Company, and the family story is that he was in Victoria for awhile. He was not likely at Fort Victoria because it was dismantled in 1864, but I wonder if I walked where he walked?

Although we touched on some typical city activities, ours was not the usual tourist gambit in Victoria. We walked hither and yon, and generally enjoyed a relaxing time in the capital city of British Columbia.

We enjoyed excellent cappuccinos at a small, colourful restaurant.