Day 23 - Victoria on Vancouver Island, Vancouver cont'd

We had an early start today wanting to reach the 9am ferry to Victoria, the capital of BC, and it takes about an hour to reach the ferry landing from our hotel. The ferry ride takes about 1,5 hour, so we should be there before 11am and then you need another 30 minutes drive to Victoria...yeah, it's not a downtown to downtown connection. A smart thing I have seen on the highway leading to the ferry are signboards reporting to how much percentage the next ferry is full (runs hourly). So if it's full you know you don't even have to bother rushing there.

In Victoria we went to see the Provincial Legislature building. Oh yes, the last in the row. Interestingly there was a group of 20-30 people already waiting for the hourly tour. Wow, in the rest of the Legs there was nobody else just us being shown around, and this on a weekday. As you would expect with such a big group showing up every hour, the guide was less enthusiastic then the previous ones we met...well, she was like a tape being played. That was also the reason why I can't remember anything she said as naturally I lost interest after the second word and started to examine the surrounding with my eyes.

After that we went to the Emily Carr house. Emily Carr was a well-known Canadian painter amd author born in Victoria. We didn't go in though because in contradiction with my guide book, the admission was not for free. It was $7 for each adult and I think that's a bit overpriced for taking a look into two rooms.
Before going back to the ferry we went to see the Governor's house and garden. The garden is publicly accessible and you can stroll around freely around the residence. Just to give a feeling how close you get to the residence you can see through the windows. The garden is extremely beautifully designed and maintained, you can see some astonishing compositions of flowers, bushes and trees.

For me it was interesting to see this openness, there was even a washroom in the garden. Seems like here the message got through that without any realistic reason the public can't be closed out of places that are funded by the public. Try this at the Hungarian Parliament, which you can't even visit anymore, unless you are a member of a large (20+) group having a reservation months in advance. And I don't even dare to mention how overprotected our presidential palace is.

After going back with the ferry to Vancouver we went for some great sushi at the Waterfront. My parents never had sushi before so where else to try it in Canada than Vancouver. Plenty of local great seafood available and a bunch of first class Japanese restaurants around. We went to Hapa Umi and had a great variety from their menu. They liked it a lot. After dinner we did a last short walk around the greater block before returning to the hotel for a good night sleep.