Among the presents under the tree this season was a Holiday Tea “date-afternoon” out to the Butchart Gardens.
They have a regular afternoon tea service, that has been on the list for a while. We booked a 2:45 PM sitting, which does require an admission to the gardens itself, so we planned accordingly to arrive at the entrance gates in time, to purchase admission.
Our tea service was quite lovely, with the kitchen turning out a lovely tea tower of sweet and savoury treats for us to enjoy!
I particularly liked seeing the Berryman Farms local ham on the menu, which found its way into the ham salad sandwich.
Living here in Victoria, we are blessed with a number of places to go for afternoon tea! In the past year or so, we have enjoyed these afternoon-tea experiences:
- Pendray Tea House
- Empress Tea Room
- White Heather Tea Room
- Aura Restaurant
We’ve still got a couple more spots to check out on this afternoon-tea tour of Victoria, including the Abkhazi Garden Tea Room.
After tea service wrapped up around 4:15, we headed out for a walk-about in the splendour of the holiday-lightshow in the gardens.
Sunset today was around 4:30 PM, so it didn’t take long before the entire venue was plunged into darkness, revealing the thousands of lights in the show.
The 12 days of Christmas theme was well-executed, with each element of the popular holiday song displayed in various spots around the gardens. Well, except for the 12 drummers drumming, which aren’t evident until your departure from the gardens – no spoilers though! Go find them for yourselves!
We’ve never been up to Butchart Gardens during the holiday season, so this was a new adventure!
