April Choices!

As I wrote yesterday, "Every year I put together a calendar for friends and family, of photos I have published on this blog for the last year or so. However, it's always difficult to make decisions about which photos to use. I am hoping visitors to this blog will help out. Every day for the next few weeks I will publish two or three photos from a given month and hope that comments and choices made by visitors will help me make a final decision which photos to use in this year's calendar. As an incentive, I will offer an online downloadable/printable file of the calendar to anyone who helps me make a choice."

Thanks to everyone who has given me their opinions so far, and it really helps when you give reasons for your preference.

Below are my favorite April 2016 photos. There are four to choose from today - Victoria in April is like a giant garden, especially my favorite little jewel, Highrock Park. Which one do you prefer?

Victoria from Christmas Hill

Camas Lilies - Highrock Park 1

Bengal Lounge - Empress Hotel (This would be a slightly out of place photo except that three of the recipients of the annual calendar are visible in this photo. It also has historical significance because the Bengal Lounge - a venerable Victoria watering place - is no more, having been deleted in the Empress Hotel's recent renovations. The photo was taken shortly before the room was closed forever.)

Camas Lilies - Highrock Park 2 (I know this is not much different from the other Highrock Park photo but in the spring this park has such an unearthly beauty I spend hours up there wandering around.)

The Bengal Lounge

As part of the makeover of Victoria's iconic Empress Hotel, they are retiring the Bengal Lounge. It will only be open for a short while longer so I was happy when family members suggested we have lunch there yesterday. I am sad to see the lounge disappear as it reflected an historical period well and was a great place to relax with friends and have a few drinks and some good food. The ambience was the colonial period known as "The Raj" when the British Empire was at its peak and the Queen Victoria was empress in fact, one of her titles being Empress of India. The Bengal lounge had some nice authentic touches, from the tiger skin over the fireplace to the punkah on the ceiling (visible in the photo - it's the odd shaped object hanging from the ceiling on the right side of the photo.)

Inside The Empress

Large areas of the interior of the Empress are undergoing redecoration or renovation but there is still lots of carpeted hallways and walnut beams to get a sense of the flavor of this classic hostelry. The Bengal Lounge on the left offers dining with reminiscences of the Raj. The Palm Room ceiling on the right certainly comes from more gracious days.