What Makes Victoria One of Canada’s Most Beautiful Cities?

What's going on everybody? This is IslandHopperTV coming to you from Victoria, British Columbia. We're going to walk around here at the Inner Harbor and show you guys around. This is the parliamentary seat for British Columbia. A territory with 4.2 million people. I believe it's the third largest in Canada in terms of population. Just behind Ottawa and Quebec. You can actually see the parliamentary building. Talk about a European feeling city. I mean, my goodness, this place really does feel like you're in the UK. Which would make sense considering it's called British Columbia. So Victoria, like I said, is the capital. The actual city itself has 500,000 people. I came over on a ferry from Vancouver. So Victoria is known for its quaint city views and vibe. I'm kind of going to show you guys as much of this place as I possibly can in this short period of time that I'm here. Also maybe even some orcas, we'll see. I know that San Juan Islands are very close, actually we're really close to Washington. Right across the harbour is Port Angeles. And then to the other side is Anacortes. See Prince of Wales, whale watching. Alright, let's pick up when we get over towards the parliament. I'm going to also get some beer, I'm going to try this local beer they said is great. So it looks like they've got a different type of ferry here, it says Victoria to Vancouver on the Empress. That looks kind of cool. Those are the commonwealth nations, because Canada is a part of the commonwealth, along with Australia and a bunch of islands, there's a bunch of islands out there. Anyway, it says welcome to Victoria. Looks like a flower bed, they're probably going to plant some flowers there as the sun comes out. They call it June-uary, because even though it's June, it's kind of cold. But I guess by the time July comes around, they get like heatwave advisories for July and August, but June is still very chilly. Today is June 21st, it's actually the solstice, so technically the longest day of the year. Alright, let's keep cruising. There's a water taxi up there, oh man, you'd almost never know this was North America. If you look right across the bay there, you can see the Empress, that's actually a very famous hotel. It's a historical relic. Actually if you look straight across the bay there, you'll see the Empress Hotel, that's actually a historical area. Right there's the Parliament, they've even got the Grey Lines, those double-decker buses that you see in London, it's so funny. Oh, look at these guys, very friendly chaps. Look at the totem pole, it's really hard to say, Vancouver or Victoria is better, I mean, I would say Victoria has a lot of character, a lot of character, especially right along the Inner Harbor. It's like Buckingham Palace right there, it's almost like one day they're going to make British Columbia its own country, and that's a serious state house, they weren't playing games when they made that one. You know Vancouver, this is the island we're on, Vancouver Island, it's also called Vancouver City, but that's attached to the mainland. It's named after George Vancouver, but Victoria would be named after Queen Victoria, it says this stone was laid, September 24th, 1919, by his Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales. Believe this here, it is a statue of Queen Victoria. Yeah, okay, now we'll head over towards where the Royal BC Museum is, they also have like a miniature show here, like a miniatures museum, alright, if you're getting ready to come out to Victoria, this video is going to help you a lot. By the way, the ferry, when it arrives, you can see that grey line, that looks just like the buses they have in England, in London, but yeah, the ferry that they have actually arrives in the north, up by Sydney, it's actually even further north than Sydney, and it takes about 45 minutes to get here depending on traffic. We actually had traffic coming in, here's the IMAX, so if you can get that other ferry directly into Inner Harbour from Vancouver, especially with a high speed ferry, that might just be worth it, even if it's a little bit longer ride. Very lush out here in Vancouver. So yeah, they have the Royal British Columbia Museum, IMAX, what do we got over here, native plant gardens, I know they have an orchid garden here, I thought orchids liked humidity. Dinosaurs of Antarctica, what, that's wild, oh no, very common noise around British Columbia is these sirens, especially in Vancouver, down by Gastown, oh my gosh, wild. Thanks to everyone who hits the like button on these videos by the way, to help get them out there. More totem poles, the old spaghetti factory, it's like a local favourite I guess. Have you guys ever been to Victoria, or British Columbia? This would be cool to do a live stream from, so you guys could like interact with me while we were going live. Alright, there we have the Crystal Garden, and now we are literally at the Victoria Conference Centre, the Empress parking, I wonder if you can go in there and check it out. That's where my hotel is, that's the Hilton Doubletree, try to put a video up for that right now. Ok guys, I have made it to Victoria, British Columbia, I'm staying at the Hilton Doubletree, using my Hilton Honours, here we go, we're gonna go right down to the inner harbour there. So what I'm gonna do is I'm actually gonna go into the Empress here, check it out, it's the Victoria Conference Centre, Upper Pavilion, ok, well, once you've seen one conference centre, I'm sure you've seen them all, you get the idea, let's go back out into the town. Alright, now I'm on Douglas and Burdett, this is a little bit inside the inner harbour here, we're actually gonna head towards the pub, see what's up there, got a real cool windmill there called Ithaca, it looks like a Greek windmill, at first I wasn't sure if it was Greek or Dutch, but when I said Ithaca, I'm pretty sure that's Greece, anyways, we're now cruising Douglas right now, so we are headed northbound on Douglas, there's the pub, it's called the Sticky Wicket, that'll be fun to see if they've got some nice beers on tap, never been there before so, you know, this kind of reminds me of Tasmania, Hobart, or like the South Island in New Zealand, New Zealand and British Columbia are very similar, I would say, Sticky Wicket, Hoppy Hour, maybe they meant to say Hoppy Hour as in hops, hello, do you guys have bar? Alright, so after three beers at the local lager, now headed back out on to Douglas, this is actually considered the primary downtown, definitely reminds me of Hobart, Tasmania. So, going by St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, I'm actually gonna head back down towards the Inner Harbor, you guys can cruise Douglas if you want, that is the main drag, but you can do that all on your own, yeah, so you can tell it's a very old classic city, I did say earlier that it had around 500,000 in the metro area, it's around 390 actually, 390k, so it's not quite as big as I thought, but it's growing, and come to find out, you can actually get to Seattle on a ferry, so they do have a direct ferry to Seattle from here, that's pretty good. Alright, well, we'll pick up as we get closer. This road right here is known as Government Street, you can actually walk this whole street and end up directly on the Inner Harbor. I think this video is gonna be useful for people who are coming to visit for the first time, Fort Victoria was established in 1843 by Hudson Bay Company chief, Factor James Douglas, who thought the area was perfect Eden, called this place an Eden when he saw it. Much of the Pacific Coast has been considered Edenic, I've heard that frequently, La Jolla, Santa Monica, before it got developed, Malibu, before it got developed, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Monterey, Carmel, let's just say the whole Pacific Coast is one of the most pristine coastlines in the world, up and down, including Vancouver Island down, but even if you go up to Alaska, the Inner Passage, Juneau, catch a can. Alright, so here we are on Wharf Street, there's a great view of where we were earlier, you can see the Hotel Grand Pacific and the Parliament Building in the background. Let's keep cruising here, probably gonna have to get on the other side of the road. If you guys are enjoying this video, make sure to hit the likes, consider subscribing to the channel as we continue to go across Canada on this one. If you guys are interested in Canada, it might be a good idea for you to actually subscribe because I'm going to dive into all my curiosities about Canada, including Alberta, I might even do Manitoba and Saskatchewan, I hope I said that right, but we'll see. I do have Calgary on the list. There's a place in British Columbia alongside Vancouver Island that gets a lot of attention called the Okanagan. I've never heard of that until recently, but I've had several people refer me to that area called the Okanagan. Look at this bay, I can't wait to show you just how cool it looks. Nice look at the Inner Harbor. Alright, cruising around this beautiful city, my goodness. Plane's taking off, let's see if we can get him. Hopefully it's zooming in. He's airborne. And he's off. That's where the seaplanes take off. I love their seaplanes out here. Man, I gotta say, Victoria is far exceeding my expectations. It really is, this is a great place. Loving it. Really am. I love both Vancouver and Victoria. You should watch my Vancouver video if you haven't already seen it. I'll try to put a link below. So they've got this bridge here that goes across. Looks like they've got like some tugboats or something over here. It's called Johnson Street Wharf. So you can cross the bridge. It looks like there's a lot more commercial real estate over there. It's called the Johnson Street Bridge. Okay, if you go over there it looks like they got some restaurants along the water and some tugboats. Looks like water taxis and harbor tours. Alright, we are now on Johnson Street. Let's keep on cruising through here. What do you guys think so far? What do you think so far? They got Market Square. We all know about Market Squares. It's usually where they have a market in a square. But some of them have been amazing. It's like a British thing. Very small Market Square. Is that like a big Market Square or a small Market Square? Looks like they've got shops in the distance, but I'm just gonna keep cruising. It's definitely a very colonial type city. Similar to what I saw in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It's not like these American cities where they ripped up all the heritage and the old world culture and replaced it with this sterilized corporate mask. So it looks like they've preserved a lot of these buildings. As you can tell, they're old buildings. Brick. Who builds brick buildings anymore? No one. Alright, back on Government Street. I'm gonna hang a hard right. Here we go. Okay, oh, what's this seagull doing? What is he doing? Seagulls known to be violent? I don't think so. All right. This road here is called Yates. I don't think seagulls are known to be violent. They don't have a violent past. It's like killer whales, orcas. They got a killer name, but never really known to attack people. Oh, what do I feel like going into Eddie Bauer to buy winter clothes, even though it's summer? The warm weather is upon us. I mean, it's not gonna get much colder than this. It's probably 60, maybe even like in the 50s right now. Very chilly for June 21st, January. But yeah, Government Street right here. Got another Irish Times pub. Irish pub. They got a clock tower on Douglas Street. Okay. Oh, I got some more. Okay, well, after a few beers, we are back out onto Government Road. It's now a lot later. It's around 7 30. So it's evening. We'll just kind of cruise it back towards the center. This tree. It's a tree of life. Oh, one of the things I like about this road, there's no automobiles going north and south. That's nice. Way off in the distance, you can see, I don't know if you can see it, but I can see it. There's snow on those mountains. That's Olympia National Park in Washington. Oh, we got a big, big boat horn going off. Maybe we can go down there and see what kind of watercraft has taken off. You know, for a city, Victoria, that has 94,000 people, definitely feels like everyone's enjoying the evening night. And it's literally just Tuesday night. Either that or they just get a ton of tourists. I feel like there's a lot more than 94,000 people here. 320,000 in the metro area, which includes like the suburbs, but I feel like it's a lot more crowded than that. Coming up to the Empress again. This is walking government street all the way down towards the Empress. There's a great view right here. I don't know if you guys can see it with this camera. I can see it with the personal eye. This has like got to be one of the best. This is probably the best corner view in all of Canada. I've been to Montreal. I've been to Vancouver. I've been to Toronto. Toronto doesn't really get anything like this. Maybe Quebec City, maybe Banff, but as it stands right now, this little corner right here is super cool. Yeah, loving it. Let's go this way. What do we got over here? Victoria's Centre. I'd imagine you can learn all about being a visitor here. There's the Empress. All right guys, that is going to conclude this episode of Island Hopper TV from Victoria, British Columbia. We will see you guys on the next one.