Spa Day for Two at Sapphire

Victoria Film Festival's single-screen cinema on Douglas, where beer is served, most screenings are 19+, and the film has actual soul.

On the Sidney waterfront, the makers of colour-shifting Empress 1908 Gin hand you bitters and garnishes and let you play bartender.

Three heated adults-only mineral pools at the Boathouse Spa, a eucalyptus steam room, a stargazing sauna, and Mount Baker filling the horizon across the strait.

A Turkish-craft studio on Broad Street where you press coloured glass into a lamp for a couple of hours, then take the glowing thing home.

A decades-loved Broughton Street sushi bar where two counter seats and the word 'omakase' is all the plan you need.

Fort Street Korean tapas and cocktails: low-lit, late-running, and serving a 'Squid Game' gochujang dish with the world's most appropriate name.

The Chateau Victoria's hotel bar, Canada-nominated, with rare vintage spirits and leather banquettes built for slow, low-lit evenings.

UVic's repertory cinema since 1971, cheap tickets, locally famous popcorn, and films the multiplex wouldn't touch with a pole.

A full Nordic circuit on a restored 1943 barge at Ship Point, three saunas, cold plunges and hot tubs with the Inner Harbour lapping beside you.

A tunnel-like entrance on Broughton Street opens into a five-storey atrium with a mosaic-glass ceiling, and it costs nothing to stay.

Seventy-plus shops, a Purdys Chocolatier, and a food terrace with skyline views to wait out the rain in downtown style.

Walk-in BC oysters shucked to order on Blanshard Street, with all-day Sunday happy hour and a 4.8 you can actually trust.

Two blocks from the Inner Harbour, the Magnolia's Canada-nominated bar where craft cocktails and Pacific Northwest bites quietly become the whole evening.

Downtown Victoria's 4.6-rated Korean grillhouse where you cook for each other and emerge smelling faintly of garlic-soy triumph.