The Fairmont Empress in Victoria is our next home. It is our last of a half dozen Fairmont properties that we have recently stayed at. It is a grand establishment and our room is quite nice. But we can't quite go to our room just yet. After dropping off the luggage we head over to the Royal British Columbia Museum. They had a nice Natural History wing with taxidermy, fossils, dioramas and displays. The mammoth was huge and imposing as was the sea lion. Luckily they did not try to replicate the smell of the various animals and landscapes. We popped back to the Empress for a bite and a cuppa. Our server, Andrea, also divested herself of her stuff and enjoyed a bit of migratory behavior. She was a storehouse of information and had some great stories. We got in the room and then took a walk, The downtown was nice but a rainy Sunday evening kept most folks at home. We headed back too when the wind picked up.
A huge light fixture
We have arrived
The lobby of the Empress
A bronze Emily Carr
The Royal British
Here are the mammoth of the mammoth experience
Duck duck
Goose
A box crab
The mammoth experience
Rain is coming down
Time for a bite at the bar
It's a cold draft in the bar, luckily Andrea provided a soft and warm blanket
Now some hot tea will make it all better
much much better
Andrea agrees!
Even happier now with a meat and cheese board
And some heirloom tomatoes
The bar is put together quite nicely
and stocked to the fullest
The room is ready
We tool a short walk and what a topiary
But the wind and rain sent us back
We can watch the city from the inside
