The Magic of Christmas at Butchart Gardens

A woolly mammoth, a walkable old BC town you can actually wander through, and a First Peoples gallery that'll stop you cold.

A coal baron built a 39-room sandstone castle, died before moving in, and accidentally created Victoria's best self-guided date.

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

Victoria's 1913 grand hall still fits 1,400 seats under an ornate ceiling and a wildly varied bill worth dressing for.

A genuine 1908 castle with free Italian, Japanese and rose gardens, peacocks, and a film resume that includes Professor X's mansion.

A 1890s Fernwood church turned theatre so intimate the actors skip the mics, and the pubs are right outside.

More than 85 hand-built dioramas inside the Empress, featuring one of the world's largest model railways and zero self-consciousness.

A candlelit, scented journey through the afterlife with 250 real ancient artifacts, at Victoria's Royal BC Museum.

Canada's narrowest street, three feet wide at points, once a gambling den, now vintage records and ice cream.

Wander fifty-five acres of illuminated gardens at dusk, then find a lawn spot as a choreographed fireworks show bursts over the Sunken Garden.

Seven galleries, an 1889 mansion, twenty thousand works, and a Japanese garden with a real Shinto shrine waiting out back.

Hold a tarantula at this tiny downtown menagerie of 50 species and discover exactly how brave your date actually is.

Emily Carr's 1864 yellow Italianate childhood home in James Bay, tours by donation, and Dallas Road is right down the street.

Where Fort Victoria stood in the 1840s, now there are heritage brick, café patios, and an artisan market.