V - Victoria (of course)

Here's a statue of the young Queen Victoria, the British Monarch that my city is named after.  So many people think of her as the aging dowager but here in this statue on the front lawn of the Legislature she's presented in a much younger, although still very formal aspect.

Victoria, British Columbia has a reputation for two things:  one, being more British than the British (which actually isn't true) and two, being the home of the internationally famous Butchart Gardens (maybe I'll do a blog post about that one day).

We are also the capital city of the province and home to the Francis Rattenbury designed Parliament Buildings.  That's where I went with my camera today.  And it was perfect that it was pouring rain... because it's often like that in April.  I'm taking Kat Sloma's online photography course, A Sense of Place, and this week's assignment is to take some photos of a location that's somewhat of an icon and and make it our own.  So that's what I was doing standing in the rain this afternoon.  

Here are a few scenes of one of Victoria's icons that don't look like the postcard views.

Workers with umbrellas heading out for a smoke break.

More workers doing some kind of boot camp exercises on the back promenade.

The carved doors leading inside the west wing.

A glimpse of the stylized carvings on the column tops.

A gardener working in the rain.

Looking way up at the golden boy that adorns the top of the ornate copper cupola.

The view from the bottom part of the Queen Victoria statue (pictured above) that welcomes people to Victoria's Parliament buildings in the rain.  (Well I guess this last one kind of looks like a postcard except for the rain!)