This post was originally published August 30, 2016 and updated May 19, 2018.
The Butchart Gardens is a world famous garden located near Victoria, British Columbia in Canada. It’s about a 40 minute drive from downtown Victoria and it’s the most popular thing to do in Victoria, BC.
We saved the world-famous The Butchart Gardens for the last day of our Babymoon in Victoria so we’d end strong. We hopped on the CVS Tour bus located directly in front of the Fairmont Empress Hotel. Our guide was humorous and gave us a lot of background information about The Butchart Gardens and the Butchart family during the 40 minute drive. When we arrived, we felt like we had a solid understanding of the place, which made exploring even more fun!
When my Mom offered to watch our toddler for a weekend getaway from Seattle, we figured it would be perfect timing to go on a babymoon.
Wow! Simply wow! I’ve wanted to stay at the Fairmont Empress Hotel since they donated to one of the many auctions I used to manage for nonprofits back in my former life. There was something so magical and authentic about the hotel and I knew if I ever had the opportunity to head up to Vancouver Island, that’s where I’d stay in Victoria, BC. When my Mom offered to watch our toddler for the weekend, I seized this opportunity to finally stay at the Fairmont Empress Hotel and explore Victoria, BC. We were able to get a fantastic rate through Boeing.
You can’t come to Victoria, BC and not do Afternoon Tea. I think it’s basically a requirement. Like eating pasta in Rome or nibbling on a crepe in Paris. When I saw that the Teahouse at Abkhazi Garden offered an Afternoon Tea, I was immediately intrigued!
When we saw that Victoria, BC offered a tour of a castle, we figured we should probably check it out. Thankfully, it was a stop on our Victoria Sightseeing Tour. The road to get up to Craigdarroch Castle is narrow, so our tour bus dropped us at the bottom of the hill and was walked up. This was cool because we really got that “Oh Wow” moment when the castle appear around the corner.
As soon as I told my friends that my husband and I were spending our Babymoon in Victoria, one of their first suggestions was to check out the Royal BC Museum. I hadn’t really heard of it before, so I went online to take a closer look. I saw that they had a Mammoth exhibit going on while we’d be there, which was motivation enough to visit. When I saw that it was located across the street from our hotel, it felt like a sign that we must make the visit happen.