Get Weird at Open Space

One of Canada's largest university art collections, free to walk through, in a calm room on Yates Street.

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

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

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

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

Victoria's 162-seat black box runs touring theatre, dance and spoken word, and becomes three Fringe shows in one night every summer.

Eighty-plus years of volunteer theatre in a 175-seat Rockland coach house, plus a gallery, a bar, and absolutely no parking.

Thirty to forty-five minutes of model ships, BC coast history, and genuinely enthusiastic staff at Nootka Court, for very little money.

Victoria's first board-game café, eight dollars buys you all night, a game guru, paninis, milkshakes, and at least one minor dispute.

Oak Bay's grown-up art dealer since 1974, free to browse, and an excellent excuse to develop opinions about things you cannot afford.

A 1909 bank vault of a bookshop on Government Street, on every world's-best-bookshop list, and it costs nothing to wander.

Canada's largest used bookstore, three floors and roughly a million books, best navigated with a five-dollar scavenger hunt and no agenda.

A downtown day spa where Ayurvedic massages have a near-cult following and a rainy afternoon becomes a whole personality.

A 90-minute guided walk through Canada's oldest Chinatown, with earpieces, a local guide, and gambling dens you never knew existed.