Walked 14.64 km / 22 154 steps
Expectations firmly lowered, I set out to enjoy the day!… and I did! (I think my husband would agree… depending on his mood when you ask him)
We started the day with a Nature Walk through the Gardens of Government House. This put us in a really good mood and I think set the tone for the rest of the day.
On the way there, we saw a really cute bakery on Cook street so we stopped for coffee & a treat. The little custard tart was sensational, but the coffee was so disgusting I couldn’t choke it down! Still, it was a nice stop.
The Gardens at Government House were really beautiful – we spend almost an hour wandering around.
This mama duck thought I was getting to close to her babies and she was not afraid to tell me so!!!
We wandered the gardens for a while longer because we needed to kill time until 10AM when Craigdarroch Castle opened. I was an interesting visit but really, to call it a CASTLE is a bit of a stretch! It was a beautiful stately Victorian Home and I especially liked all the stained glass.
My husband LOVES LOVES LOVES LOVES animals, and so I thought a great activity to do next would be to go to the Petting Zoo. I am not as enthusiastic as he is – in fact I don’t even like zoos, but my goal here was to do something he would consider “fun” to keep moral up since we were still readjusting our Victoria Expectations.
And it was fun, I have to say that I enjoyed it too!
… especially the peacocks; they are so beautiful!
After this, it was time for lunch. Still feeling generous and wanting to contribute to the good-mood vibes, I agreed to go to The Old Spaghetti Factory. Ugh. Barf.
It was as crappy as I expected it to be. The service was too fast, my salad was frozen, the pasta was mush. What does he like about this place??? Ah well, relationships are all about give and take right? LOL
After this “sacrifice”, I thought I deserved a reward so I suggested trying the Empress again for cocktails. My husband exclaimed enthusiastically: “yes! great idea” (score!)
This picture makes me laugh, can you tell by my expression and body language that I am trying to appear pleasant and polite with the hostess who turned me away yesterday?
Well it worked because there was room for us at The Bengal Lounge this afternoon 
Following the orders in my guidebook and the menu, I ordered an Empress 1908 – a Tea Martini! It was strange to say the least. Not bad, but not something I would order again. I would recommend it for the experience of trying it… they even served it with a scone!
The Lounge was nice, but I have never really been a fan of this type of “Indian décor”
Before leaving, I needed to order a sweeter drink to offset the savoury one!
It was about 3PM by the time we were done. What to do next? One of the activities in the “Top Ten things to do in Victoria” was a visit to Miniature World.
My honest opinion is that it’s interesting, but it’s an "anywhereville” tourist attraction – like wax museums. I tend not to really like these types of things because they aren’t really representative of the city I am visiting. Still, I can’t deny it’s a good way to kill time.
Here’s my Instagram collage in lieu of pictures – you can go on line for more info.
After this, we decided to walk to Fisherman’s Wharf.
It was a great walk! We enjoyed it a lot; a little overcast but that’s ok, we like shade.
We especially liked watching the seals play!
From Fisherman’s Wharf, we took the Ferry to the Canoe Brewpub for supper – Google for some reason doesn’t recognize the small ferries and seems to think that to get there we have to go via Seattle Washington!
But here’s proof we took the local ferry service. I would not want to go to Seattle in one of these… and it did not take us 11 hours either – more like 15 minutes!
Dinner was great, I loved this place but after that pasta muck I ate for lunch I sadly wasn’t that hungry so I couldn’t pig out like I ordinarily would have wanted to!
THE BEST part of the day was still yet to come! I was able to convince my husband to go out for a nightcap and we discovered an AMAZING place: Bard & Banker.
It’s like I died and went to Fancy Bar Heaven. It was so atmospheric!!! It reminded me of the old banks converted into bars that we had seen in London… and it was! I loved EVERYTHING about it; I didn’t want to ever leave!!! And it was so cheap too – I had a double Grand Marnier for only 7$ unbelievable!
Sadly, my IPhone battery was dead so I had to hope my husband loved the place as much as I did and take enough pictures!! He took some, but was not as enamoured as me!
All in all, we had a MUCH better second day in Victoria. Things were looking up!
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