Months ago we booked a long weekend trip to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. We booked it before I took my leave from work, which is great because we’d never spend the money on flights now.

Why a weekend in Victoria?

First, my husband’s brother and his wife live there. They are just awesome and as an added bonus they have been super supportive of our situation.

Second, it’s not Vancouver. Typically we go to Vancouver to see parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. It’s typically a weekend trip filled with individual two hour long visits with every family member separated by short drives between each house. If we are lucky we fit in a few hours at Granville Island (one of our all-time favourite places), but lately it’s become too difficult to even fit a few hours in for ourselves, as our desire to spend a few hours relaxing at Granville Island results in a big fight with the parents. So, for the last few years we’ve just skipped the visit to Granville Island to avoid the drama. Our trips to Vancouver seem to leave us both completely exhausted and wishing for another vacation. So, we find that we no longer really enjoy them. Not to say we don’t enjoy our family, but we no longer enjoy the work that a visit involves.

Third, we hope it’s far enough away from Vancouver that the high stress Vancouver folks won’t come take over the weekend. The point of this visit was to relax and at the same time get some good quality time in with my husband’s brother and his wife, who we don’t get to see much of since we live rather far apart.

Fourth, Victoria is just awesome and totally worth a visit.

So, after a very rocky start to our trip due to the absolute insane policies of Air Canada in which they overbook flights, and then bump passengers (more on that in another post).

Once we got to Victoria, our weekend was dedicated to a quite visit with quality conversations, a few too many glasses of wine/sangria/local craft beers, and some excellent site seeing.

Here is a photo collection of the highlights from our weekend:

151st Victoria Highland Games – Caber Toss

151st Victoria Highland Games

The marina at Fisherman’s Wharf to buy fresh and delicious crab

Pacific Ocean

A beautiful peacock at Beacon Hill Park

Turtles sunbathing at Beacon Hill Park

Family Photo

Craigdarroch Castle