A weekend getaway to Victoria

Recently I was offered a stay at a hotel in Victoria. I’ve stayed at many different hotels downtown, but never the Harbour Towers. The timing was perfect as it was an anniversary weekend for my girlfriend and I. It seemed like a great way to spend some quality time in Victoria that wasn’t about work which I don’t do nearly often enough.

We jumped on a late afternoon ferry and was able to beat the weekend rush.

Upon arriving at the hotel, it was already dark but we were treated to a stunning view out of our room that went from the BC Legistlature to Ogden Point. I tried to capture the panorama with my iPhone but it was a little too dark:

The suite itself was enormous…I’ve never stayed in a two level hotel room before. It was almost as big as my townhouse, complete with full kitchen:

although my favorite feature was the in room hot tub:

We enjoyed a nice dinner at the Vic’s Steakhouse in the hotel.

The next morning brought sunshine to the inner harbour and more spectacular views.

The bright sun made the panorama turn out a little better than the night before:

After checkout, we headed to Goldstream Park to look for the salmon run. It seems we just missed the run though as we didn’t see many fish although we may have been in the wrong area of the park for the best views.

As we had reservations for the return ferry trip, we didn’t have time to investigate further before heading to our final stop, Butterfly Gardens, a place I’d wanted to visit for ages.

Unfortunately, I didn’t notice the hot air dryer just inside the door (for warming up camera gear) until after I’d made a few trips around inside and was frustrated that my DSLR lens kept fogging up due to the humidity inside. By that time, we were running late to catch our ferry home so some of the better shots I got were from my iPhone which didn’t fog up at all.

I never feel like I have enough time to do the things I want when I visit the Island…usually because the ferry is such a time sensitive thing…especially on a long weekend. I feel bad that I wasn’t able to visit with any friends this trip but it was a little to short to try and schedule anything. But that just means I’ll just have to visit again soon.

My thanks to the Harbour Towers Hotel for the invite to come visit…something I hope to do again soon.

Disclosure: The hotel provided the room stay for free but we paid for our own transportation, food and attractions during our stay.