Night Market - The View

As well as music, the night market on Ship Point Pier has all sorts of crafts and arts for sale and services like massage too, but whether you buy anything or not, while you browse you can enjoy the view. It always looks pretty good but is especially magical just as the sun goes down and the lights on the legislature begin to twinkle.

Best of 2015 - 2

Here's a favorite photo from June of this year.

Poseidon

The Steamship Terminal pictured yesterday is decorated on its corners and entrance by sculpted heads of the Greek God of the Sea, Poseidon, a very appropriate mythological reference. The heads were carved by George Gibson and there is an interesting article by Ross Crockford on them and the terminal building you can read by clicking HERE. Poseidon is also the god responsible for earthquakes so let's hope he continues to be pleased by his prominent location on the Victoria's Inner Harbour.

Steamship Terminal

On Sunday I went down to the Inner Harbour to take some video of the Harbour Ferry Ballet. I didn't get the video I wanted so I'll have to go back again. Hopefully I'll have a video for you next week. But, I did get some photos of the Steamship Terminal, my personal favorite of the three Rattenbury-designed buildings flanking the Inner Harbour.

Sunset on the Inner Harbour Causeway

Victoria is usually sunny and warm during the daytime in summer but evenings are generally cool enough to require a sweater or light jacket (unless you're a teenager). Nevertheless, every summer there are a few evenings when it's warm enough after sunset to tempt me out. Usually they occur in July or August but Saturday night was an exception. It was hot all day and the heat lingered on past sunset. In the above photo the Legislature is just catching the last rays of the setting sun. The photo below is the view with just a slight turn to the right. Victoria's hanging flower baskets are in peak performance mode.

After Dark 2 - The Robert Bateman Centre

Here's another Rattenbury design, formerly the Canadian Pacific Railway Steamship Terminal. Now the building houses a restaurant on the main floor with upper floors devoted to prints and paintings of Robert Bateman, a contemporary artist now resident on nearby Saltspring Island. It provides a dramatic contrast to the Legislative Assembly Building pictured in yesterday's post.

Robert Bateman Centre

Above and below are photos of one of Victoria's iconic buildings, now called the Robert Bateman Centre. It is, of course, the same building that you see on the top of every page of this blog. It was designed by Francis Rattenbury, who also designed the nearby Legislative Assembly Buildings and the Empress Hotel, as well as other important Victoria Buildings. The building was erected to serve as a steamship terminal for Canadian Pacific Steamships. Later it housed Madame Tussaud's Royal London Wax Museum. Now it has become the home of a gallery of Robert Bateman prints and paintings. Robert Bateman is a world famous artist who specializes in paintings of the natural world. Here is a link to his website and another link to the Robert Bateman Centre itself. I encourage you to click through and take a look at some of his remarkable work. Robert Bateman was born in Toronto but now lives on Saltspring Island, near Victoria.

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For those of you who might be experiencing deja vu, yes, both these photos are from the archives. The top one was taken in 2009 when the building was still Madame Tussaud's. The bottom one shows the building in 2012 when the Undersea Gardens (the white floating structure) was still nearby. HERE's a link to a photo taken in March of this year that is more contemporary....

Inner Harbour Departure

When planning our recent trip to Port Angeles I must confess that one of my ulterior motives was to take some photos of the Inner Harbour of Victoria from a reasonably stable platform in the harbour itself. So, before we start to look at the revealed beauties of Port Angeles we will take a leisurely departure from Victoria as experienced on the deck of the MV Coho, the ship that has been carrying cars and passengers between Victoria and Port Angeles in the USA for over 50 years.

The green roofed buildings in the background center are the BC Legislative Assembly Buildings. The Grecian styled building in the right foreground was built as the Canadian Pacific Steamship Terminal. More recently it was occupied by the Royal London Wax Museum. Currently it is empty though rumour has it that a new tenant will soon occupy this building. The relatively tall building on the far left is the Royal BC Museum and Imax Theatre, currently featuring dinosaurs.

Facelifts

It has been some time since I have renewed the header photo for Victoria Daily Photo and since I am currently enamored with cartoon style processing I decided that for a new look to I would use this photo of Victoria's Inner Harbor. The title of this post has a double significance also in that the large white building in this photo has just undergone an extensive cleaning and repainting and, empty now, will soon house another tenant, since its longtime resident, the Royal London Wax Museum, is no longer there. This building was originally built as the Canadian Pacific Railway Steamship Terminal in 1924. It was designed by Francis Rattenbury and Percy James. The large building in the background of this photo is the Hotel Grand Pacific.