Bites and Sights through Victoria, BC
On the repositioning cruise in the Spring of 2023, our very first stop was in Victoria, British Columbia. As surprising as it is, this was our very first experience in Canada and I don’t know if we could have picked a better city to start with.
We got really lucky, and it was a beautiful day with sunshine, limited wind, and 50-60* F temperatures, making it perfect for a walk around the city.
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To maximize our day, we opted to book the excursion BC Bites and Sights through NCL. Which I would highly recommend. It was a great combination of culture, sightseeing, and food; all of our favorite things!
As we started walking with our tour, it was immediately clear that Victoria has done a great job ensuring tourist have clear directions to key locations throughout the city. They had painted red walkways out of the cruise port area and directing you to Fisherman’s Warf, a popular tourist spot.
Along the way, our guide explained that many buildings throughout Victoria have a plaque at the front, establishing the building as a Heritage House. This means that the building is older than 85 years, and the owners have opted to maintain the building with the same details, in exchange for some government funding. We had to chuckle a little that the “heritage” buildings looked brand new and how young Canada really is.
As we continued our walk, we were lucky enough to be around the same day the city was mowing and maintaining the grass areas. Everyone loves the smell of fresh cut grass, but living in AZ, there is an extra level of appreciation since it’s never around.
Next up, we passed by a beautiful condo. This (meaning big fancy condos) was actually pretty common throughout our entire day; but a famous person lived here, so there was more insight than normal.
For the low low price of $8 Million USD, you too could own the entire top floor of this condo! Plus, they have their own greenhouse in the top tower, which honestly sounded pretty awesome and looked beautiful from where we were standing.
Imagine Cafe
Up next was our first official stop at a local café named, Imagine. Not only was it an adorable location, with great food, they were doing a lot to give back to their community. They almost exclusively hire disadvantaged or disabled individuals and teach them the skills they need to get future jobs.
So while we felt great supporting them, we also got to try a delicious local pastry, Bannock and Berries. The First Nations people originally created Bannock, unleavened bread, and a berry jam and cream are common toppings.
Later in Vancouver, we actually learned a bit more about the First Nations people and the respect and reverence everyone seemed to give them and their history. Much different, and I would argue much better, than what you traditionally see in America (we would say Native American).
Our tour continued on through Fisherman’s Wharf, though we didn’t really stop (yet). Our destination was a cute little ferry that would take us to Chinatown. We did come back later in day though, so we will see the Wharf again!
The ferry ride gave us a view of multiple downtown sights from the water. We saw a beautifully designed draw bridge that was intended to look like a raindrop when raised and originally painted blue, but since redone in white.
We got a little bit more insight along the way on how expensive it is to live in Victoria, as it is a very popular location to live. Understandably so, with is beautiful buildings and general scenery. One of the more surprising references is that it costs about $200 for locals to take a ferry to Vancouver! It’s so close you could throw a rock to hit it, but apparently it’s not cheap to get between the cities.
As we will see with Vancouver later on our trip, we learned that the cities are it. If you go further inland, you are into wilderness. I am sure that makes for tons of amazing outdoor activities, but it’s crazy how small the population and ‘human take-over’ there was here.
About 15 minutes later, our ferry had arrived. As we docked, we saw a few strange looking boats…
No surprise that we were all curious, so our guide explained that these are floating hot tubs!!
They use a wood burning furnace and with people sitting in them, they are almost level with the surface of the water. You can take them out and enjoy the views from your hot tub.
I think it is both genius and hilarious; and I 100% want to try it the next time we visit 🙂 .
Chinatown
Next up, we did a walk through Chinatown. It seemed to have the similar history to most where it became a slum area, but Victoria has done a really good job to revitalize it.
The history of alley’s in this area was fascinating. Since they limited the number of people that could be entering and walking through, it helped give plenty of warning when authorities would walk through. However, since they were a key access point for many businesses one of the more famous alleys, Fan Tan Alley, still has dozens of shops you can access from this alley.
Downtown Victoria
By this point we were starting to get a little munchy and were happy to see the Swan’s Hotel and Brewery as our next stop with a snack! It was a nice historical building with a great pub on the first floor. They provided slices of bread and a fish spread that was unique but surprisingly good. I ended up eating at least a full sandwiches worth. Nathan also got a local beer that was one of the better drinks we had on this trip.
After our snack, we continued walking through Market Square. Which sounded more impressive than it was. It seems it use to not be a great area, but new owners are trying to bring back stores, events, etc. and are doing well so far.
The ferry basically took us to the furthest point from the ship (Chinatown), so the rest of our tour was talking back towards downtown, and ultimately the cruise ship.
So, at this point we started to pass a lot of shops, both local and chain. We were really impressed with how clean and well-kept this area was. I would highly recommend coming here to shop or walk around. This is where I picked up a local ‘Victoria’ sweater, since it was colder than I had originally packed for.
However, our tour was not done yet! Our next stop was at a local Poutine restaurant, and Nathan was happy to get “real” Canadian Poutine… Sadly, it was the least impressive snack we had that day. Totally fine, but nothing to repeat, so we will keep Poutine on the list for Quebec City in the Fall.
Our tour officially ended in front of the Empress, an impressive and large hotel in the heart of downtown. We had the option to return by bus or walk back. Since we still had plenty of time, we wanted to walk around and shop a little before returning.
Unfortunately for us, the directions we received for the bus were completely wrong. So we ended up walking almost 1/2 back to Chinatown doing random shopping before we turned around again and decided to just walk back to the ship (for reference, it said it was going to take about 40 minutes to walk back to the ship at this point).
It was a little rough, not gonna lie. However, that was mostly because I wasn’t 100% on this trip due to massive seasonal allergies, so I was just tired.
Fisherman’s Wharf
As mentioned though, about 20 minutes later we had arrived at Fisherman’s Wharf, which gave us an opportunity to eat and rest before finishing the remaining 20 minutes.
While Barb’s came highly recommended, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get Fish Ceviche, which was available at another restaurant called Coco Grill. Nathan decided to try to Onalicious Prawns as well. All of which was tasty! Though the ceviche was unique, and had a much heavier citrus task than I am used too.
After that, I still had a craving for something salty, so we decided to give Barb’s a try! Plus, I had to check out this local Root Beer that had a unique take on flavors but was still pretty damn good! The Fish and Chips were also good, and I actually tried some (not my favorite 🙂 ).
Once we were full and rested, we finished our walk back to the cruise ship. All in all, we were really happy with our day in Victoria and our first official visit to Canada!
If you want to check out our other adventures on this trip, here are some quick links for you!
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