Get Lost in the Royal BC Museum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Willow Stream Spa inside the Fairmont Empress: fireplace, harbour view, two therapists, one mineral pool, zero reasons to care about the weather.

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

A 225-seat restored 1940s movie palace doing Chekhov like it's urgent, which it turns out, it is.