Pacific NW: Victoria & Tea at The Empress

Helllloooo there!!!  I didn’t disappear I swear!  I was just on vacation, and leading up to vacation was craziness at work and getting ready for said vacation. 

Brian and I went out west to Seattle to visit my mom.  She is living there temporarily for work, so that leaves us a free place to stay right in downtown Seattle!

She also took the days off that we were there, and we had a blast exploring Seattle as well as heading to Victoria, BC for 2 days.

I’ll do part 1 of our time in Victoria :)

Thursday morning we took a ferry right from Seattle, through the Puget Sound and into Victoria, BC which is on Vancouver Island.

The ferry takes just under 3 hours, which put us in Victoria at around 10:30am!  

That’s the Empress Hotel where we would be staying that night.  One of our top activities we wanted to do while in Victoria was the well known afternoon tea at the Empress Hotel.

You already know mom and I love to go to afternoon tea, and we have been going every Mothers Day for years to various locations around Boston.  

After checking into the hotel, we set out to explore.

Victoria is a really cute city with lots of shops and very walkable as a visitor.   

Later on we went back to the hotel to change for tea!  This was Brian’s first afternoon tea.

  

We had the classic afternoon tea and each selected the type of tea we wanted to drink.  Mom and I both chose the Empress Blend.

First to come out was fresh organic blueberries with whipped cream

Tea

A classic tea service generally has finger sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam, and finally pastries and sweets.

  

The tower was served with 3 each of everything.

From left to right:  smoked salmon, egg salad, curried chicken salad, ham and cucumber, and a sun dried tomato tapenade.

I’ve never liked egg salad, but I actually tried it this time and wasn’t too bad!  Not crazy about it, but I liked it :) 

My favorite was the smoked salmon.

The best part, in my opinion,…scones

These were particularly delicious scones…light and fluffy with Devonshire cream and strawberry jam. 

For the sweets we have French macarons in the back, then a pear cheesecake, in front of that is a pistachio/chocolate checkerboard cake covered in marzipan, and little lemon tartlets up front. 

By this point I’m getting too full to finish but had to try everything.  They were all so good it’s hard to pick a favorite…although I am partial to lemon curd :)

We all had a wonderful afternoon

   

Can’t wait to share pictures from the Butchart Gardens and our Sea Plane ride back to Seattle…THAT was awesome.