Two-year anniversary trip

Posted on Aug 26, 2007 in Life | 1 comment

To celebrate our second anniversary, Crystal and I visited Victoria, BC, the weekend prior to our actual anniversary. We had an excellent time up there, eh? Here’re the notables from the trip.

The Clipper

Want (nearly) all the security, cost, and waiting you’re used to when flying, but none of the actual air travel? The Clipper is for you! I’d never been on it and was impressed with how fast the thing went. But you can’t really spend anytime outside like a regular ferry. Then again, you can’t buy duty-free booze on the Edmonds-to-Kingston run, either. One positive: 75-cent Tully’s bottomless coffee.

Craigmyle B&B

Eschewing the class and high cost of the Empress Hotel or its kin around the inner harbor, we stayed at a bed and breakfast about a 25-minute walk away. It’s named the Craigmyle because it’s literally next door to Craigdaroch Castle (read below for more on this mansion-cum-museum-cum-tourist-trap).

The Craigmyle, a four-story guesthouse, wasn’t amazing, but suited us okay. Our room was tiny but had its own bathroom (though the sink was across the room from it… odd). A “traditional English” breakfast was included, which meant oatmeal or fruit followed by two eggs, toast, sautéed mushrooms and tomato (and bacon if you wanted it). Pretty good, actually.

Downtown Victoria

Though touristy in the extreme, downtown Victoria is quite nice. Lots of little shops (the most blatant of which advertised “best souvenirs here!” or had neon “currency exchange” signs) offered plenty of diversion and food choices. The inner harbor promenade was populated with artists hoping to sketch your portrait or sell you some handmade jewelry. We skipped the wax museum, harbor tour, undersea aquarium, and “Big Bus” tour, but did enjoy the  free tour of BC’s legislative building. Quite gorgeous and, according tour our guide, is worth half a billion dollars.

High tea at the Empress Hotel

If you look up “worst value” in the dictionary, you’ll find high tea at the Empress Hotel second only to the $640 toilet seat. We’d been told to treat ourselves with this fanciest of tea services outside of Buckingham Palace, so we did, despite the whopping $55 price tag. Each.

It’s quite a deal they have going there. Everyone tells you it’s the most wonderful, extravagant way to treat yourself so you’re built up for it. First you have to visit the reservations counter, where you’re told they can seat you tomorrow, or “we had a cancellation so we can seat you right now.” Maybe I’m paranoid, but I think they do that a lot to get people to say yes because they can get in without waiting.

I felt awkward because I was in shorts and felt too casual, but apparently the only restriction to this fancy place is no jeans. We were sat in the library, which I actually didn’t mind as it was more intimate. We sat down and was served our strawberries and whip cream. Very nice. We chose our tea (the Empress blend), then our three-tiered tray arrived with sandwiches, scones, and desserts. Being on edge about how fancy it was, I noticed the chip in the bottom plate and how all three were tilting slightly. We dug in, and honestly the sandwiches were good: cream cheese and smoked salmon; carrot ginger, chicken curry, and classic cucumber. The scone was good with clotted cream and strawberry preserves. Even the four bite-sized desserts were nice. Tasty, but honestly it was about $12-$15 worth of food. That was it. An experience and a good story to tell, but I’ll never do it again and certainly not encourage others to throw away their cash. For $55 you’d think they could give you a glass of champaign or something, sheesh.

Craigdarroch Castle

Coal baron Robert Dunsmuir built a castle for his wife in 1890, but died before it was finished. His family lived in it briefly before sitting abandoned, then serving as a hospital, various schools, offices, and now a museum. Pretty cool to wander around and see the restoration work. Some rooms were restored to their 1890s glory; others remained as spartan offices from the 40s. The coolest thing about the tour were the two in-costume “guides” discussing the castle. One gentleman in the billiard room was very entertaining, explaining things to “the futurists” gathered around him. The other was a servant girl who was “sewing” dresses and explaining to the visitors about the impending marriage of the youngest Dunsmuir daughter. They were both quite good, and it was entertaining to watch the other tourists interact with them.

Overall, it was a great anniversary trip.  The highlights, though, had little to do with Victoria. They were the delicious and dirt-cheap Chinese meal we had Friday night and the fact that we finally finished the Harry Potter series Sunday morning before heading home. Good times!