Today’s walk is based on walk #9 of John Crouch’s ‘Walk Victoria’ (according to my local independent bookshop this book is out of print and the author is in the process of getting it republished…hopefully with distances in Km or miles instead of hours). This walk is 5.13k .
If doing this route and you need a place to park, there are parking spaces on Douglas and in Beacon Hill Park.
According to John Crouch’s book, James Bay was made into a fashionable suburb in the 1800s. The rich land owners then decided that the Rockland area was better and moved their houses there and subdivided their properties in James Bay allowing smaller houses to be built. And there are a lot of cute little cottage-like houses in the James Bay Area…. Did I photograph any of them?Nope.
The walk took R. and I to the main tourist area of the city: in front of the B.C. Parliament Buildings (also known as ‘The Birdcage’ – I might do a blog about it in the future)
As we were passing the cenotaph, a woman was changing the wreaths. R., who is braver than me, asked the woman about it. The woman said she is from the Legion, and every Memorial Day they get more wreaths than they can display, so they spread the wreaths out throughout the year.
From the Parliament building one can see the Empress Hotel. (Apparently, they have a good tea service.)
Continuing our walk along the water there is a path that leads behind Laurel Point Hotel. At the beginning of the path there are two commemorative plaques from Victoria’s sister City: Morioka.
A little further along and there is another tribute to the City of Victoria from the Lebanese community.
Walking around the point, past Fisherman’s Wharf, and the Canadian Coast Guard there was a pole covered in masks. one of the masks looked like another relative to Usagi-chan, but the lighting was wrong and the picture did not turn out. (Usagi-chan was tired today, so stayed at home).
We finished our walk by walking up Government, but along the way there were little signs of spring everywhere.
KotsuKotsuLife 