Explore Victoria

The Empress is a hotel facing Victoria's Inner Harbour, designed by Francis Rattenbury for the Canadian Pacific Railway and opened in 1908. The château-style brick building with steep roofs and gables was extended in 1912 and 1928 and is a National Historic Site of Canada. Non-guests can see the exterior and gardens, and afternoon tea is served inside.

The Royal BC Museum is the provincial museum of British Columbia, founded in 1886 and set on Victoria's Inner Harbour between the Parliament Buildings and the Empress hotel. Its galleries cover the natural and human history of the province, with a model of a woolly mammoth among the exhibits, and the building also houses an IMAX theatre.

The British Columbia Parliament Buildings on Victoria's Inner Harbour are the seat of the province's Legislative Assembly. Designed by Francis Rattenbury and opened in 1898, the neo-Baroque stone building has a central dome topped by a gilded statue of Captain George Vancouver. Visitors can see the interior on guided or self-guided tours.

Emily Carr House is the birthplace and childhood home of the painter and writer Emily Carr, in Victoria's James Bay neighbourhood. The Italianate wooden house was built in 1863 for her father Richard Carr and restored by the province from 1976 to its 19th-century appearance. It is a provincial and national historic site with rooms furnished in the style of Carr's childhood.

Beacon Hill Park is a 75-hectare city park on the shore of the Juan de Fuca Strait, south of downtown Victoria, protected since 1858 and a municipal park since 1882. It combines ponds, flower gardens and Garry oak meadows with a hill looking across to the Olympic Mountains, a 38.8-metre totem pole carved by Mungo Martin and Mile Zero of the Trans-Canada Highway.

Fisherman's Wharf is a working marina on Victoria Harbour, a short walk west of the Inner Harbour, run by the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority. Fishing boats, live-aboard vessels and a colony of brightly painted float homes are moored at its docks, and floating kiosks sell fish and chips, fresh seafood and whale-watching and kayak trips.

The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria is an art museum in Victoria's Rockland neighbourhood, founded in 1946 and housed since 1951 in the 1889 Spencer Mansion with exhibition galleries added between 1955 and 1978. Its collection of more than 20,000 works covers Canadian and Indigenous art, art from Asia and across the Pacific Rim, and paintings by Emily Carr.

Craigdarroch Castle is a Scottish Baronial–style mansion in Victoria's Rockland neighbourhood, built between 1887 and 1890 for the coal baron Robert Dunsmuir, who died before it was finished. Now a museum and a National Historic Site of Canada, it shows 1890s family life across 37 rooms with wood panelling and stained glass, and a tower reached by 87 steps.