Last Updated on November 14, 2022
Victoria sits on the southern tip of Vancouver Island and is one of the most picturesque Capital Cities we’ve visited … a wonderful melange of older neighborhoods, restaurants, and shops near the Parliament Buildings, and a small but bustling and modern downtown. One of the oldest cities in the Pacific Northwest (British settlement began in 1843), it is the seventh most populated city in British Columbia, but has a distinctly laid-back, sort of village-y vibe that makes it very comfortable to get around in.
We stayed right on the Marina in the James Bay neighborhood, within sight of the majestic Parliament buildings and the Empress Hotel, and just a couple of blocks from Government Street. Between 1234 Wharf Street, which we called home for four days, and Government Street sits a fabulous variety of top-notch eateries, pubs and cafes, which give the area a very European flavor.
Our suite at the Victoria Regent presented 24-hour views of water taxis, small tour boats that made me think of rubber duckies, whale-watching fleets, the day-trip ferries coming in from Vancouver, and the Pandora Street drawbridge linking downtown Victoria with the Victoria West neighborhood, which hadn’t existed the last time we visited. Looking city-side, we had a grand view of the Parliament buildings (which are beautifully lit after dark and give the area a fairy tale-like atmosphere),
the Empress Hotel, and the Red Fish Blue Fish shack near the ferry wharf, where can be found the best (I kid you not) fish and chips in the northern hemisphere. That particular view (Red Fish Blue Fish) was vital to those of us who absolutely couldn’t miss at least one helping of this special treat but didn’t want to stand in a two-block-long line to GET it. Our view let us see when the traffic had died down,
and on our last day in town we hustled ourselves over there and got our luncheon treat.
Whale watching definitely was high on our list of “must-do’s” for this trip, so Monday morning we showed up at the pier just below our hotel suite to board a 12-passenger BC Whale Tours boat. We suited up in heavy, bulky, rubbery, VERY unflattering survival suits … and made our way like a platoon of Pillsbury Dough Boys to the open-air bench seats in the bow of our boat. And away we went … puttering through the harbor, then picking up speed as we headed for the open water. We pounded across the water for miles … and miles … and miles … without seeing even a hint of a whale. And then … Eureka! Our pilot learned via the onboard radio that a large pod of humpback whales was just a few miles away. And off we went!
Soon we began to see other small boats headed in the same direction we were … and then … a spout!! Another spout!!! And eerily, silently, a flotilla of humpback whales passed on either side and all around us. There were whales in every direction we looked … spouting, breaking the surface with their backs, flourishing their flukes as they dived deeply (to avoid us, perhaps?). For nearly an hour we sat, pointing out new arrivals to our fellow passengers, snapping photo after photo.
And then, with the pod slowly pulling away from us, we commenced our 40-mile passage back to Victoria’s harbor … pounding over the waves a bit more gently, as speed was no longer of the essence, and pausing for several minutes to visit up-close and personal with the immense (up to 1,500 pounds), noisy, smelly Stellar Sea Lions covering the ground around a tiny island light house. It had been, we all agreed as we removed our bulky suits (for which we had been surprisingly grateful during our fast-moving, wet, and windy quest for the whales) … a wondrous experience … perhaps the best such watch any of us had ever experienced. And our guide beamed and happily accepted our thanks and tips.
Because we had photographers who’d never been to Victoria onboard this trip, we embarked on Tuesday morning to make the 30-minute drive to beautiful Butchart Gardens. While one of our companions remarked that these were not as large as our nearby Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania, the other managed to find ample subjects for her camera and happily snapped away for a couple of hours. . The other two of us took an abbreviated stroll through the footpaths and settled in at an
outdoor café near the gift shop for cappuccino, biscuits and people-watching, and admired the gorgeous hanging baskets suspended from every overhang in the square.
And since gift-shopping and vacationing still seem to go hand-in-hand, we wandered into the gift shop to peruse the shelves and racks. One charming service that this shop offers, we discovered years ago, is vetted, pre-packaged and stamped seeds that can easily be carried through Canadian Customs without issue. Imagine bringing home seeds from plants in one of the most personable and pleasant gardens in the Northern Hemisphere … and growing a Butchart Gardens butterfly bush in your own backyard!
We visited no food markets in Victoria but had no trouble finding delicious meals … our companions discovered a 70’s style diner/restaurant called Frankie’s on Government Street, and we ate our breakfasts there, just a few blocks from our hotel. One evening we enjoyed wonderful small plates at a crowded, noisy, spontaneous place called (gasp) Tapas, obviously favored by a much younger crowd. But we also found more staid and conventional surroundings and fabulous seafood at Finn’s, right in the same Wharf Street block as our hotel, and Nautical Nellie’s, which serves bounteous (and quite wonderful) dry Martini’s. We DID make reservations for our evening meals (aren’t these phone aps wonderful???), but didn’t find here the same pressing necessity to reserve a table if you wanted to eat that we saw in Vancouver.
Day five arrived before we knew it, and it was time to leave beautiful Victoria with its great food and friendly natives (Canadians were friendly, kind and helpful, wherever we went). And so we bid ‘good bye’ to Victoria and took to the road to Chemainus and Parksville’s Tigh-Na-Mara Resort!!
Dayle Dawes