Vancouver to Victoria

Two more days before we fly home.

We are currently in Vancouver and yesterday we visited Victoria on Vancouver Island.

There are four of us so we decided to travel in pairs - one pair taking the seaplane (a 35-minute flight), the other taking the ferry.

I, naturally, opted for the ferry. What I hadn’t realised was that the terminal was a 45-minute journey by taxi from our hotel in downtown Vancouver.

In fact, it is almost on the US border.

Anyway, we arrived in good time for the 9.00am ferry and 90 minutes later arrived on Vancouver Island where a further 30-minute taxi ride took us to the Parliament building overlooking the harbour in Victoria.

We arrived at 11.30, four hours after we left the hotel, and there, waiting for us, were my wife plus fellow traveller Helen whose seaplane had glided gracefully - and directly - into Victoria harbour ten minutes’ earlier.

It was time for something to eat so we wandered up to the Fairmont-owned Empress Hotel which, like the Parliament building, overlooks the harbour.

Fairmont owns The Savoy and other luxury hotels so we bit the bullet and ordered afternoon tea (at midday) at £50 per head. (It was a cheaper option than lunch!)

The sun shone and it was altogether a glorious day.

Our tickets to Victoria were one-way only so we decided to return to Vancouver aboard a V2V (Victoria to Vancouver) catamaran that somehow took longer than the ferry but departed from Victoria harbour and dropped us in the heart of Vancouver, a short distance from our hotel.

Unlike the ferry, on board facilities included waiter service, complimentary drinks (including a glass of fizz) and a 3-course meal.

Best of all was the view of Vancouver as we arrived shortly before sunset.

Recommended!