Markus’ Blog

We are back from our trip to Victoria. We got home Monday night, tired, but otherwise feeling good.

It was indeed a lovely trip. Even traffic was good — surprisingly good. The drive down from Vancouver to Tsawwassen on Saturday morning was a breeze. People must have either left Friday night or stayed home or something. There didn’t seem to be a major line-up at the ferry terminal, either. We had reservations, so I don’t know how long the wait actually was. The terminal was certainly busy, but there were also many lanes still available to take on more cars.

Saturday evening, we were taking it easy, having dinner at an Irish pub and sampling some local beers.

Sunday, we spent most of the day on the road, participating in a tour of wineries in the Cowichan valley. For good measure, a cidery was thrown in as well. Not only did we sample tasty wines and ciders, we also took full advantage of the fact that, unlike Napa, there were no import limits. We brought home quite a nice inventory of wines, ciders and ports. We also learned that the Canadian government apparently charges tax and duty equivalent to 50% of the purchase price of any alcoholic beverage over and above the free allowance. I knew it was bad, but I had no idea how bad. (The US, on the other hand, charges 25 cents per bottle over the limit.)

Sunday dinner was at Pescatore’s. It was very tasty.

Monday morning we spent at the Royal Museum, watching the Titanic documentary and then the exhibit. It was quite impressive seeing the well preserved artifacts.

For “lunch” we had tea at The Empress. Food and tea were very delicious. We even got to take some tea home with us.

Afterwards, we wandered around Inner Harbour a bit and eventually took a harbour ferry to Barb’s place, where we had a little snackie. That’s when it first started to rain (or rather drizzle). A pretty good record, considering they had been predicting rain for the entire weekend.

We were running a little late as we were taking a little harbour ferry back to the Empress. We had to hop on a cab to make it back to the B & B as fast as possible (that’s where we had left the car). It was almost 5pm by the time we caught the cab, and we had to claim our reservation for the ferry by 5:30.

What followed was a somewhat tense drive to the ferry terminal. The roads were busy, but still not too bad for a long weekend. However, it was raining quite a bit by that point, and people simply don’t know how to move into the right lane after passing somebody or if they are going slowly. We weren’t all that sure that we’d be able to make it in time, but we did. The time stamp on the ferry ticket read 5:31pm. Phew.

The ferry ride back was eventless. Highway 17 on the mainland side was very busy and slow going, but by the time we reached Highway 99, it was all good.

All in all, a great weekend. I’m only sad it went by so fast.