Golden Hour on the Dallas Road Waterfront

Ross Bay Cemetery holds 20,000 stories, Emily Carr, a herd of resident deer, and the ocean glinting over the wall.

Victoria's Parliament Buildings flip on 3,000-plus light bulbs at dusk, and you get to just stand there with ice cream.

The sunset Victorians quietly beg you not to put on a list, from a 1914 observatory perch only locals know.

A 360-degree summit view ranked among Canada's most beautiful, and the whole trick is you drove here.

Free-roaming peacocks, ornamental ponds, stone bridges and a hilltop view of the Olympics, five minutes from downtown Victoria.

Two completely different waterscapes on one thin strip of sand, swans on one side, Olympics on the other, and it's free.

A flat tidal-inlet path lined with century-old umbrella pines, rose gardens, and the ghost of a 1907 floating tearoom.

A cliff-edge gravel loop in Esquimalt with wind-shaped firs, a sneaky gravel cove and the Olympic Mountains straight ahead.

A Douglas-fir ravine behind UVic with a creek, footbridges and, if local legend holds, actual magic in the spring water.

A 120-year-old garden in an old limestone quarry, where Jennie Butchart invented romance out of an industrial problem.

The breakwater dares you to walk 800 metres straight into the ocean, and there is absolutely nothing stopping you.

Victoria's Lieutenant Governor opens 36 acres of roses, Garry oak meadows and an Olympic Mountains view to the public. Free.

A floating boardwalk into a city wetland ten minutes from downtown, where the turtles are sunning and the eagles are showing off.

Soft sand facing Discovery Island and Mount Baker, a promenade for strolling and paddleboards for falling off together.