Picnic and Paddle at Willows Beach

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

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.

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

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.

Victoria's most over-delivering sunset walk, from driftwood logs on the bluff to Clover Point's kite-filled sky.

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

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

Sidney's flat seaside walk past bronze sculptures and loafing seals, with the Gulf Islands and Mount Baker for a backdrop.

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

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

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

An easy, gorgeous walk beside Butchart Gardens: a shaded descent through big cedars to the calm shore of Tod Inlet.