The daily blog of a tourist visiting the USA: Day 9 Victoria, Canada

The daily blog of a tourist visiting the USA: Day 9 Victoria, Canada

Today we were heading back to Seattle but on the way we were going to stop at Victoria in Canada. So exciting. Visiting 2 countries in the course of one month. Never done that before.

We had the day from 7 to 2 because we were going to dock in Victoria in the afternoon. We had an exciting section of BINGO and lucky draw from the raffle tickets accumulated throughout the cruise. The winner takes home two fully paid tickets for a cruise in the Mediterranean. We didn’t win but we were close to winning the BINGO. Like this we spent our day doing the things they had to offer. And then finally in the afternoon we disembarked for our last shore excursion in the beautiful Victoria, Canada.

We saw some mountains in the distance and our driver guide told us that those belonged to Washington State. Holy Cow! We were that close to USA, it was a swim away. Actually Seattle was 4 hours away by car but still. So close.

We first were going to the Butchart Gardens. They were pretty far away and took us 2 hours to get there. The Butchart Gardens were absolutely beautiful and had many different gardens with different types of flowers. It was started by Jeannie Butchart  in 1904 and it has been in bloom since then. Her husband was Robert Butchart and was the owner of a cement factory. They had a huge land where they quarried their limestone. But soon Jeannie felt like they needed more and then took an interest in flowers. She wanted to have a garden but Robert didn’t approve of that idea. But she said she would do it herself and actually did it. She dug her holes and started making her garden. But soon this garden started to expand. She converted limestone quarries to flower beds and soon she had a huge garden with flowers imported from all around the world. Many people came to visit and the always tea and left, as a sign of hospitality. Once the Queen of England was going to visit this garden but the road that led here wasn’t quite good. So Jeannie had Robert pave the road!

When we got to the garden we were given a strict time limit. We visited the many garden with their different atmospheres and themes. They were really beautiful and their effort was  commendable. The flowers were well kept and there were even figures made of moss!

After visiting the gardens we climbed back on the bus and we were taken to Victoria downtown. We passed many buildings like The Empress Hotel and the Parliament Building. In Chinatown there was a small road which was only 3 feet wide!

After exploring Victoria and taking a lot of pictures we were taken to our ship. We had dinner and dad took me out for tiramisu. Get it? Out for? No. Okay.

And that was it. Our cruise was over. The next morning we disembarked for the last time and caught the plane home to Denver.