Victoria, British Columbia's capital, is only a short ferry ride from Vancouver but the two cities are miles apart in their ambience and aesthetics. Where Vancouver trades on its image as a brash, glamorous, up-to-the-minute destination, Victoria, on the southeastern tip of Vancouver Island, leans more toward the quaint and the quiet (though you may not think so if you visit in the mobbed summer months).
Victoria Today
For years Victoria marketed itself quite successfully as a little bit of England on the North American continent, a place that attracted "the newly wed and the nearly dead." Eventually the people of Victoria began to see the natural and very unique glories all around them instead of those reflected from a dying empire. When that happened, the city became a lot more interesting. Restaurants branched out into seafood, ethnic, and fusion cuisines. And as visitors showed more interest in exploring the natural world, Victoria added whale-watching and mountain-biking trips to its traditional London-style double-decker bus tours. The result? Victoria is the only city in the world where you can zoom out on a boat in the morning to see a pod of killer whales and make it back in time for an expansive afternoon tea. Still, life in Victoria remains much quieter and more laid-back than life in glam-seeking Vancouver. And that's part of Victoria's charm.
