Sunday, 18 June 2017

Visit to a Stately Home

One of the last things one would expect to visit on an Alaskan cruise would be a stately home modelled on similar lines to the many I've visited in Britain or, for example, the equivalent Chateaux in France or even, as I reported last year, a trip to the castle of Bran in Romania ... home to Dracula (aka Vlad Tepes). Yet a week ago exactly as I write Dot and I were whisked away to visit Craigdarroch Castle in of all places, Victoria. V. is the capital city of British Columbia in Canada and not part of the USA, but unlike Alaska's Juneau is a substantial and prosperous city in its own right and home to over 300,000 citizens. Amazingly we simply walked off the Oosterdam, which I guess counted as US territory, flashed our plastic boarding card, and walked straight into Canada. It was the same in reverse when boarding the vessel and I wish it were so easy when moving between other countries.

Anyway, I guess you want to see the 'Castle' and find out if I've been exaggerating its status. How about I present some photos of the building and its interior and you can judge whether it ranks as a 19th century stately home! I'll just mentioned that I was highly impressed and think that the UK National Trust would lap it up. We roamed through most rooms in the house from the grand entertaining areas through to private quarters and the servants' arenas, all pretty faithfully furnished and decorated in the fashions of the day.














 
















Nice, eh!? It was built by possibly the richest man in Canada, Robert Dunsmuir during the reign of Queen Victoria and he made his wealth from huge land owning in Canada's west and his exploitation of coal resources. It is one of Canada's National Historic Sites. He never got to live in the completed building, for he died before he could do so, but his family struggled on for many years before the building passed into a succession of alternative uses. Go to https://thecastle/ca/ for  more detailed account of the Castle's history.

After this fascinating ramble we boarded our coach for a tour of central Victoria, and we saw quite a bit of the city we missed when there just 5 months ago!

AS


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