Victoria

Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, sits at the southern tip of Vancouver Island, a ferry crossing or a short floatplane flight from Vancouver. Its mild climate makes it the Canadian city of early spring, and its harbour of whale-watching boats, its gardens and afternoon tea at the Empress suit an anniversary or a long weekend that should move more slowly than the mainland.

Victoria grew from a Hudson’s Bay Company fort, built in 1843 on the territory of the Lekwungen-speaking peoples, and became the capital of British Columbia in 1868, three years before the colony joined Canada. The Inner Harbour is its centre: the domed Parliament Buildings, outlined in thousands of lights at night, face the Fairmont Empress across the water, with floatplanes and ferries moving between them.

Around the harbour lie the Royal BC Museum, Canada’s oldest Chinatown and the quiet residential streets of James Bay, Rockland and Oak Bay. The Butchart Gardens, created in a former limestone quarry on the Saanich Peninsula, are half an hour north, and the wineries of the Cowichan Valley and the wild coast of Sooke lie within an easy drive. Orcas, humpbacks and grey whales pass through the surrounding waters.

Spring comes earlier to Victoria than to anywhere else in Canada: cherry and plum blossom line the streets in February and March, and the city counts its flowers while the rest of the country is still under snow. From spring to autumn whale-watching boats leave the Inner Harbour, and summer is dry and sunny without great heat, with long evenings on the water.

Late summer is harvest season on the Saanich Peninsula and in the Cowichan Valley. Winter is mild and rainy, rarely frozen, and storm-watching on the island’s west coast draws visitors on to Tofino and Ucluelet. Autumn and winter are the quietest seasons in town — the best time for the museum, the spas and a long afternoon tea while the rain moves across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Fairmont Empress, opened by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1908, has faced the Inner Harbour for more than a century; afternoon tea in its Lobby Lounge is the city’s best-known ritual, and its rooms look over the harbour and the Parliament Buildings. A few streets away, The Magnolia Hotel & Spa is an intimate independent house, and on the shore ten minutes east the Oak Bay Beach Hotel adds a seaside stay with oceanfront mineral pools.

LVXVRY books the Empress through Accor Preferred — at the official hotel rate, with the privileges the programme attaches to the stay — and advises on and arranges stays at the Magnolia and the Oak Bay Beach Hotel, together with the floatplane or ferry crossing from Vancouver and onward stays elsewhere on the island.