Victoria BC

There is little I like more than a ferry. And on the one from Port Angeles to Victoria, British Columbia the experience was enhanced by mist, snowy mountains, and the feeling of crossing from one country into another. Plus the perfect book–a Regency romance by Georgette Heyer–Frederica–with one elegant twist after another. And a bad cup of coffee. Perfect.
We didn’t make it to the famous gardens in Victoria, but were satisfied by the X-mas lights right on the harbor. Parliament looked made for the display.
The Empress Hotel is beyond classic–as iconic as Victoria herself. I always think of the great painter Emily Carr who lived in Victoria and liked the conservatory in the hotel–now madly decked out for X-mas.
An early modernist, and independent woman in the Georgia O’K mold, she painted the decaying totem poles in remote abandoned villages in a kind of cubism in the mist fashion.