Shoreline Loop at Saxe Point Park

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Nine acres of themed gardens in Saanich, a Takata Japanese garden, and Canada's largest outdoor bonsai collection for a few dollars.

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