Victoria -- Day 2

On our second day in Victoria, we ventured out of the City Center to visit some nearby gardens and parks. There's no better way to get a feel of a place than by taking public transit. Victoria has a great bus system, although it took us a little time to figure out the routes and schedules.  

After a quick breakfast we armed ourselves with day passes and hopped the bus just outside our hotel. We took a short ride through the neighborhood of Fairfield (Victoria is made up of a number of neighborhoods, each with their own little stretch of local shops and restaurants). We got off at the start of another neighborhood, Oak Bay, and visited the small but charming Abkhazi Gardens.  This place is jam-packed with different plant species, all on one acre.  Their volunteers are extremely knowledgable, and were happy to talk about the history of the place and point out some of the more notable species.

Lisa liked these little guys -- they kind of remind me of mold spores (but much cuter):

We took lots of "Artsy-fartsy" pictures like this--just for you, Dad!

Then we hopped back on the bus in search of lunch.  We decided on chicken shawarma from the local Lebanese restaurant. We got them to go, threw them in our pack, and got on another bus to take us west of the city to the town of Esquimalt. There we first visited Saxe Point Park where we had a picnic lunch on our high perch on the rocks. 

I love the way a lot of the parks here are laid out. They are kept rather natural and have paths to all these great cubby holes -- rock ledges, meadows, beaches. Rarely is a park nothing but a big expanse of lawn with a rusty swingset!

Then we walked through the town, directly north to Esquimalt Gorge Park. There's a nice walkway along the gorge, and was being used by kayakers and swimmers. We came across a nice Japanese garden, too.  Victoria isn't called the City of Gardens for nothing -- every park has gorgeous well-tended gardens, and it is tough to find a private residence that doesn't have a well landscaped and lush yard (in fact, most properties don't even have much of a lawn, it is just garden).

Lisa in front of the Gorge

Japanese garden

We finally hopped the bus again to take us back into Victoria.  Dinner was at Baan Thai, which we had visited on our last visit, and it was so good we had to return. We also got this to go, and enjoyed it in our suite while watching the cruise ships come in.

happy!