we decided to take the hop on, hop off bus and to do the whole loop to see what we might want to do the next time we took it…

the tour started at the Empress, so while we waited to board we visited the gardens there… we stepped inside the lobby to admire the beautiful arrangements and then wandered the lawns and gardens…

we found lovely flower beds and a few giant old trees…

we decided that the next day we would visit Chinatown and Beacon Hill Park…

after we’d been around once we walked to the Parkside Hotel where we saw the koi and had a snack beside the pond…

we went back to one of the stops and hopped on, and hopped off, just a few blocks from our hotel… very handy…

the next day, after I’d put on just about all the clothes I’d brought because I’d been cold the day before, lol, we caught the bus by our hotel and hopped off at Beacon Hill Park… it is very large…

we hopped on and hopped off again at the Empress and walked up a street to check out the shops… after lunch we walked to see Trounce Alley and Fan Tan Alley, which is only 3 feet wide!!! after buying a few treats, we caught the bus and hopped off at the stop which was close to our hotel;-)…

the hop on, hop off bus was worth every penny as we used it from around 1 pm the first day until around 5 pm on the second day…