Day 6 - Victoria
We've been to Victoria dozens of times (it's only a 4 hour drive and a two hour ferry trip from home) so we booked an excursion primarily to see some of the less tourist saturated sights. The tour consisted of a bus ride around the the southeast end of the peninsula with great views of the ocean and a lot of upscale real estate. From there we drove through the campus of the University of Victoria, up Mt Tolmie, and ended up an Craigdarroch Castle. We saw a couple of new areas to explore on our next trip to Victoria.
Craigdarroch Castle is a Victorian-era Scottish Baronial mansion built by Robert Dunsmuir in 1889. Robert died a year and a half before the castle was completed. By 1919 the castle was in the hands of creditors, the 28 acres of formal gardens subdivided. Over the years the castle itself was subject to one raffle, served as a military hospital, a college, and a music conservatory. The Craigdarroch Castle Historical Museum Society took control of the castle and its contents more recently.
