Victoria's Hanging Baskets

About this time of year Victoria's downtown core blossoms with these beautiful hanging flower baskets, about a thousand of them. While not unique to Victoria, these baskets are a symbol of the city for many visitors, and have been a summertime tradition since 1937 when they were introduced to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the city's incorporation.

In the background to the baskets above is the roof of the Empress Hotel. This hotel as well as the adjacent Legislative Assembly Buildings and the nearby Crystal Gardens, the three most impressive buildings in the downtown core, were all designed by Francis Rattenbury. You can read a little about Rattenbury's tragic life by clicking here. In succeeding posts I hope to look a little more closely at these prominent buildings.

Queen Victoria

No blog about Victoria would be complete without some reference to the Queen for whom the city was named, so here is a photo of the statue of Queen Victoria that stands in front of the Legislative Assembly Buildings. This is a young Queen Victoria, quite different from the aged queen we are more used to seeing (below), but when the city was founded in 1843, Victoria had only been 6 years on the throne and, at 24 years old, may have been very like this statue.Below is a photo of the statue overlooking the Inner Harbour with the Empress Hotel on the right. The Empress Hotel, built shortly after her death, was named after the Queen in her role as Empress of India.