Sights at the Inner Harbour, Victoria, BC

Victoria is the capital of British Columbia, and the parliament buildings are in the inner harbour area, where we were yesterday. This is a photo from Google images, not one I took.

How someone managed to take that photo in daylight with no one around is puzzling me, unless it's an example of photo editing at work. Here's my photo from yesterday.

There were lots of people around, and a choir of some kind was singing at the steps of the entrance. We could hear them from across the street.

There's another impressive building at the inner harbour - The Empress Hotel.

Days after we arrived in Victoria, the hotel workers went on strike. There are 500 unionized workers at this hotel. One of the complaints of the workers was that, with recent refurbishment of the hotel, there was far more glass to clean, which required more time. The workers felt management wasn't taking this into consideration. The maintenance aspect is one of the drawbacks of the trend to more glass in modern designs, but it's a trend that's also very evident in all the new homes being developed in and around Victoria. I suppose people want to take full advantage of the beautiful views.

On September 24th, Victoria is the first scheduled stop for Prince William and his family for their upcoming tour of Canada. I'm wondering whether they will be staying at the Empress Hotel, and if so, whether that had any influence on the contract negotiations. A good bargaining tactic, perhaps.

The inner harbour is home to Harbour Air, and there were a few of their sea planes 'parked' out front of the Harbour Airport terminal.

There were also water taxis doing various routes from the harbour, as well as a large ferry that came in while we were there. The ferry was unremarkable, so I didn't take a photo.

I did take a photo of this boat though, as I thought it was large and I was impressed.

Within minutes this one was upstaged by a ship from Cape Town, South Africa, that had a helicopter on the back. I'd never seen anything quite like that before. 

It was a nice afternoon out, in lovely weather, with lots of sights to see. A good day as a tourist.

Fanci spent time with her sheep yesterday, working away at it. This morning that rug was covered with stuffing, and now I've renamed the sheep 'airhead'. One squeaker out, but still more to go. She's not finished with it yet!

Note:

• Double-click on any images to enlarge them.
• We have the homeowners' approval before posting photos of their home or pet.