Victoria is the most charming little city on the planet! The Capital of British Columbia, Canada, it is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island (totally separate from the city of that same name, Vancouver BC).
Visiting Victoria requires some planning as there are no bridges to Vancouver Island. The easiest access points are the Ferry From Mainland Canada starting at Tsawwassen, BC, just to the southwest of the City of Vancouver and the Vancouver International Airport (YVR). Of course, there are some great sites in around Vancouver itself. We’ll mention some of them here also. This ferry takes you to Swartz Bay Terminal. Note: There are many ferry destinations from Tsawwassen. Be sure you get the one to Swartz Bay.
These ferries are huge by comparison to most you might “picture”. They hold over 400 vehicles and over 2,000 people. They have an excellent restaurant on board (normally requires reservations made well in advance) and a couple of smaller snack bars. There are two ferries on this line and the trip takes about an hour and three quarters. The drive from downtown Vancouver is about an hour and then there is another 40 or so minutes to Victoria. Allow 3 1/2 to 4 hours for the trip, each way.
If you have your own car, a great stop is the Shaw Center for the Salish Sea, just south of Swartz Bay in the town of Sidney.
Another way to reach Victoria is by a tour or ferry from Seattle. Of course, here you are crossing an international border, so you will need your passport. This ferry docks right in front of the Empress Hotel (pictured later below). The “Afternoon British Tea” is another experience well worth the time and cost. There are both regular ferries and hydrofoil tour boats available in Seattle.
There are many attractions for a city this size (90,000 people in the city and 400,000 in the metro area) so it isn’t London or New York. Thus, there are only a fraction of the number of venues found in those cities. Still, the ones in and near Victoria are spectacular. Nothing in any city I have ever visited is as spellbinding as Butchart Gardens, just on the western edge of the city. The picture below is only one of half a dozen gardens and even this does not capture this entire garden. This one view can only be compared to a handful of vistas around the world. It is much larger and further to the bottom than it appears. It is built in an old mining pit.
Other major attractions include the Beacon Hill Park and its Children’s Farm. Among its attractions is a large herd of pygmy goats. These are worth the trip if you have children from three to twelve or so. Pictured below, it is obvious why I say this is worth the trip. They were ecstatic!
The Empress Hotel, mentioned above is quite a sight in itself, as well as being a quality hotel and restaurant, managed by Fairmont Hotels.
Another interesting attraction is the Parliament Building for British Columbia, which is quite large and complex compared to the state capitol buildings I have visited.
While there are other sights to see, these are the most memorable to me. We visited Victoria twice, first on a railroad trip across the USA in 1996. We stopped in Seattle for a week and made a day trip by tour boat then. In 2015, we visited from Vancouver and spent a couple of days there. That time we drove to Tsawwassen and caught the ferry with the car.
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