Sights in Victoria
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Butchart Gardens
With all the rugged natural beauty in British Columbia, it’s a bit ironic that one of the province’s top tourism draws is the 20 hectares of elaborate manicured foliage at Butchart Gardens, 21km north of Victoria in Brentwood Bay. With its year-round kaleidoscope of colors, the grounds are divided into separate garden areas – the tranquil Japanese Garden is a favorite. Summer can be crowded but the Saturday-night fireworks display (July and August) makes it all worthwhile.
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Royal BC Museum
At the province's best museum, start at the 2nd-floor natural-history showcase fronted by a beady-eyed woolly mammoth and lined with realistic dioramas – the forest of elk and grizzlies peeking from behind trees is highly evocative. Then peruse the First Peoples exhibit and its deep exploration of indigenous culture, including a fascinating mask gallery (look for the ferret-faced white man). The best area, though, is the walk-through recreated street that reanimates the early colonial city, complete with a chatty Chinatown, highly detailed stores and a little movie house showing Charlie Chaplin films. The museum also has an IMAX theatre.
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Point Ellis House and Gardens
The colonial elite used to hobnob at the beautiful 1860s-era mansion that is Point Ellis House and Gardens, which now houses one of Canada's finest collections of trinkety Victoriana. The house has 5000 artefacts, ranging from flowery teapots to intricate needlepoint artworks. Fascinating photos show how the upper-echelon O'Reilly family adapted to life on the fringes of the far-flung British Empire - apparently Mrs O'Reilly had a couple of affairs to salve her homesickness. Tea and fresh-baked scones are served in the fragrant gardens. If you have a monocle, this is the time to wear it.
Ask staff about the mansion's ghost stories, and save time for the fragrant gardens.
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Fan Tan Alley
Small but perfectly formed, Fisgard St is the center of Victoria's compact Chinatown. One of Canada's oldest Asian districts, it's fronted by a towering red gate that looms over sprawling fruit and vegetable stores and the po-faced ancients meditating outside family-run restaurants. Twinkling neon signs add a dash of nighttime excitement, while Fan Tan Alley - a narrow passageway between Fisgard St and Pandora Ave - draws daytime explorers.
Once the best spot in town to pick up your opium supplies, the slender thoroughfare is a miniwarren of traditional and trendy stores hawking cheap and cheerful trinkets, cool used records and funky mod fashions.
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Victoria Bug Zoo
The city's best attraction for kids, the Bug Zoo houses creepy-crawlies such as glow-in-the-dark scorpions and ultra-industrious leaf-cutter ants. Informative 'bug guides' wander around explaining how the insects eat, mate and give birth. Those who can't restrain themselves can handle a few critters, including an alarmingly large 400-leg millipede. Hit the gift shop on your way out to pick up a souvenir tarantula for your best friend back home.
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Thunderbird Park
On your way out from the Royal British Columbia Museum, visit Thunderbird Park, the museum's oft-photographed clutch of brightly painted totem poles, then duck into the adjacent pioneer buildings, including Helmcken House. One of BC's oldest structures, this tidy 1852 doctor's residence is lined with the minutiae of everyday family life. Refreshingly little is roped off and wandering guides provide the stories behind the displays.
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Craigdarroch Castle
If you're in this part of town checking out the gallery, don't miss this elegant turreted mansion a few minutes' walk away. A handsome, 39-room landmark built by a 19th-century coal baron with money to burn, it's dripping with period architecture and antique-packed rooms. Climb the tower's 87 steps (check out the stained-glass windows en route) for views of the snowcapped Olympic Mountains.
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Parliament Buildings
Across from the museum, this surprisingly handsome (despite its glorious confection of turrets, domes and stained glass) building is the province's working legislature but it's also open to history-loving visitors. Peek behind the facade on a colorful 30-minute tour led by costumed Victorians, then stop for lunch at the 'secret' politicians' restaurant. Come back in the evening when the building's handsome exterior is lit up like a Christmas tree.
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Bastion Square
On the old Fort Victoria site between Government and Wharf Sts, Bastion Square once held a jail, gallows and a brothel. Many of the scrubbed stone buildings are now restaurants and boutiques. You can purchase quirky handicrafts at the all-day Bastion Square Festival of the Arts, a small but colorful summer market.
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Maritime Museum
The Maritime Museum explores the region's salty past and present. Exhibits include 400 model ships dating back to 1810; displays on piracy, shipwrecks and navigation; and the Tilikum, a converted dugout canoe in which John Voss sailed almost completely around the world from 1901 to 1904.
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Art Gallery of Greater Victoria
Head east of downtown on Fort St and follow the gallery signs to find one of Canada's best Emily Carr collections. Aside from Carr's swirling nature canvases, you'll find an ever-changing array of temporary exhibitions. Check online for events, including lectures, presentations and even singles' nights for lonely arts fans.
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Emily Carr House
The birthplace of BC's best-known painter, this bright-yellow, gingerbread-style house has plenty of period rooms and displays on the artist's life and work. There's an ever-changing array of local contemporary works on display but head to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria if you want to see more of Carr's paintings.
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Beacon Hill Park
Fringed by the crashing ocean, this dramatic green space is a great spot to weather a wild storm – check out the windswept trees along the cliff top. You'll also find one of the world's tallest totem poles, a Victorian cricket pitch and a marker for Mile 0 of Hwy 1, alongside a statue of Terry Fox, the one-legged runner whose attempted cross-Canada trek gripped the nation in 1981. If you're here with kids, check out the children's farm with its baby goats and wandering peacocks.
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Goldstream Provincial Park
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Victoria Bug Zoo
The most fun your wide-eyed kids will have in Victoria without even realizing it's educational, step inside the bright-painted main room for a cornucopia of show-and-tell insect encounters. The excellent guides handle and talk about critters like frog beetles, dragon-headed crickets and the disturbingly large three-horned scarab beetles, before releasing their audience (not the insects) into the gift shop.
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