Our First Afternoon/Evening in Victoria, Canada

 Empress Hotel

Hungry and looking for a place to eat, we wandered downtown and visited the Fairfield Empress Hotel, where the Queen of England has tea when she’s in town. We were in awe of the posh décor. When we first showed up, I thought the hall was reminiscent of a sixteenth-century manor house. We strolled by a bunch of shops—one full of porcelain figurines (cats and dogs in particular); another lots of tea things including tempting tea, tea sets, and tea towels; a Bengal Lounge with extremely expensive Indian food, including a buffet for $32.00. The WOW! tea room, with columns and a dainty display of pastries on three-level circular tiered dishes. We wandered into a green room that looked like it could have been a part of the Crystal Palace—well, if it had been a lot taller.

We walked by the Parliament Building (an impressive structure with a big copper dome and many small copper domes); we also passed the Royal BC Museum and the IMAX.

We wandered downtown and went to the Cactus Club Café for an expensive and fancy dinner (I had a vegan fajita—guacamole instead of sour cream and cheese). The place also has yellow glass chandeliers, and we sat next to a wall made of bricks with spaces between them (it was an interior wall). You know you’re in a fancy restaurant when you see a TV (the Food Channel) in the restroom, which also had phone booth-like stalls, armchairs, and a strange image of a bright blue sky with a buffalo.

Munro's Books

After dinner, we wandered to Munro’s Books. It’s a beautiful bookstore, but it’s all new rather than new and used books. I’m so accustomed to used books mixed in with the new. It’s housed in yet another old building, and many windows are covered with handmade cloth wall hangings (perhaps wall quilts). We discovered that the new and used bookstore, Russell’s Books just beyond the Cactus Club Café, is only open from 9 am to 5:30 pm, so we didn’t go there. I peeked in through a front window and saw narrow aisles with ceiling-high bookcases. As I discovered on the walk back to the hotel, the other bookstore we spotted, a beautiful Victorian three-story house with lots of gingerbread trim and only a few doors down from the inn—is permanently closed with a note about it in the front window. Through a front bay window, I saw empty bookcases. Very sad.

We wandered along the harbor (after visiting Munro’s Books) and my dad kept us at a souvenir shop for a little too long. I got bored quickly. After all, it wasn’t a bookstore.