Victoria Travel Guide

Victoria had for years marketed itself quite successfully as a little bit of England on the North American continent. So successful was the sales job, Victorians soon began to believe it themselves. They began growing elaborate rose gardens, which flourished in the mild Pacific climate, and they cultivated a taste for afternoon tea with jam and scones.For decades, this continued, until soon it was discovered that not many shared a taste for English cooking, so Victorian restaurants branched out into seafood, ethnic, and fusion. And lately, as visitors have shown more interest in exploring the natural world, Victoria has quietly added whale-watching and mountain-biking trips to its traditional London-style double-decker bus tours. The result, at the dawn of the new millennium, is that Victoria is the only city in the world where you can zoom out on a Zodiac in the morning to see a pod of killer whales, and make it back in time for a lovely afternoon tea.