Victoria

Our beautiful city of Victoria, "the City of Gardens", at the southern end of Vancouver Island, is the provincial capital of British Columbia. Greater Victoria comprises 15 municipalities, and its population is around 250,000. The city is focussed around the Inner Harbour, which is constantly buzzing with activity from boats, seaplanes and tourist activities.  The harbour is dominated by the grand old Empress Hotel, one of the great Canadian Pacific hotels built in Victorian times, by the Provincial Legislature, and by the Royal BC Museum.  The walkways around the harbour are busy during summer months with buskers, pavement artists and First Nation craft sellers entertaining the throngs of visitors.  Little harbour ferries deliver their passengers to all parts of the harbour, powerful inflatables take tourists on whale-watching trips out in the straits, and float planes provide transportation to Vancouver and elsewhere.

The city is almost surrounded by the sea, and the scenic coast drive circles eastwards from the harbour, past Beacon Hill Park, Victoria Golf Club and the Oak Bay Marina, and onwards up the coast.  The seafront on Dallas Road looks across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the snow-capped Olympic Mountains in Washington State to the south, and has a marker (Mile Zero) indicating the western terminus of the Trans-Canada Highway (the eastern end is 4,860 miles away in St Johns, Newfoundland).

Beacon Hill Park is a 200-acre jewel in the heart of the city, with manicured lawns, beautiful flowerbeds, duck ponds with fountains, open heathland, a petting animal zoo, and a lookout (the Beacon) across the Straits.  A colony of Great Blue Herons sometimes nest in the tops of tall Douglas firs on one side of the park, near a nest of a pair of Bald Eagles!

Much of Victoria is known for its English quaintness, but none more so than the municipality of Oak Bay, which is so English you almost need a passport!  The Oak Bay Marina is a favourite place for boating (and eating).  The nearby Victoria Golf Club, just one of several beautiful courses in the Victoria area, is a links course on the edge of the sea, with views of snow-capped Mount Baker 70 miles away across the straits on a clear day. Willows Beach, along the Oak Bay sea-front, is a popular family beach, and hosts the annual "Oak Bay Tea Party".  A little further along the coast is the Royal Victoria Yacht Club.

During the summer, cruise ships dock in the outer harbour on their way to Alaska, and their passengers swell the numbers of tourists around the city, taking excursions in various horse-drawn carriages, pedal-cabs and other forms of transport.  One favourite destination is the world famous Butchart Gardens, just a half-hour drive away, which were the transformation of an old quarry, and have just celebrated their 100th anniversary.