A stroll along Victoria’s Inner Harbour takes in many of the city’s main attractions, such as the Royal British Columbia Museum with its dramatic depictions of the geology and native cultures of the region. Dominating the area are two late 19th-century buildings: the Fairmont Empress Hotel and the Parliament Buildings, designed by noted architect, and Victoria’s adopted son, Francis Rattenbury. Between Fort Street and View Street is the four-story shopping mall, the Bay Centre. Bastion Square, with its restaurants and boutiques, lies to the south of Market Square and its restored 1850s buildings.

Victoria’s many-domed Parliament Buildings are an impressive sight, particularly at night when the façades are illuminated by thousands of lights. Designed by Francis Rattenbury in 1898, the buildings were completed in 1897. Rattenbury, a 25-year-old British architect who had arrived in British Columbia only the year before, won a provincial competition to design the new Parliament Buildings. He went on to design several of the province’s structures, including the nearby Fairmont Empress Hotel.

The history of British Columbia is depicted throughout the Parliament Buildings. A statue of explorer Captain George Vancouver is perched on top of the main dome. Inside, large murals show scenes from the past.

Completed in 1908 to a Francis Rattenbury design, the Empress is one of Victoria’s best-loved sights. Close to the Parliament Buildings, the Empress Hotel overlooks the Inner Harbour and dominates the skyline with its ivy-covered Gothic splendor. Visitors are welcome to sample the luxurious decor of the hotel’s public bars and lounges, such as the Empress Room, and the Palm Court with its lovely Tiffany-glass dome.

This beautifully restored square faces Victoria’s picturesque harbor and contains some of the city’s oldest 19th-century buildings. What were once luxury hotels and offices, built during the boom era of the late 1800s, now house several eclectic restaurants. Restoration began in 1963 when it was discovered that the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fur-trading post Fort Victoria, established in 1843, once stood on this site. Today, this pedestrian square includes the MacDonald Block building, built in 1863 in Italianate style, with elegant cast-iron columns and arched windows. The old courthouse, built in 1889, houses the Maritime Museum of British Columbia. In summer, both visitors and workers lunch in the courtyard cafés.

Two blocks north of Bastion Square on the corner of Johnson Street, Market Square has some of the finest Victorian saloon, hotel, and store façades in Victoria. Most of the buildings were built in the 1880s and 1890s, during the boom period of the Klondike Gold Rush. After decades of neglect, the area received a face-lift in 1975. The square is now a shoppers’ paradise, with a variety of stores selling everything from books and jewelry to musical instruments and other arts and crafts.

This compact park lies at the entrance to the Royal British Columbia Museum and is home to an imposing collection of plain and painted giant totem poles. During the summer months it is possible to watch native artists in the Thunderbird Park Carving Studio producing these handsome carved totems. The poles show and preserve the legends of many different tribes from the aboriginal peoples of the Northwest Coast.

Located in Elliot Square in the Inner Harbour area, the home of Hudson’s Bay Company employee Dr. John Sebastian Helmcken was built in 1852 and is thought to be British Columbia’s oldest house. The young doctor built his house with Douglas fir trees felled in the surrounding forest. This simple but elegantly designed clapboard dwelling contains many of the original furnishings including the piano, which visitors are permitted to play. Other exhibits include a collection of antique dolls and the family’s personal belongings such as clothes, shoes, and toiletries.

At this fascinating three-story museum of coastal history, exhibits tell the stories of the giant canoes of the Coast Salish First Peoples. Other displays include the tall ships of the first European explorers, pirate ships, and whalers. Tumultuous tales of coastal shipwrecks are gruesomely captivating. On the top floor is the former courtroom of the notorious Matthew Baillie Begbie, also known as the “Hanging Judge.” The 19th-century courtroom is preserved in all its glory.

The Bay Centre is a shopping mall within walking distance of the Inner Harbour and was built behind the façades of several historic buildings on Government Street. The Driard Hotel, designed in 1892 by John Wright, was saved from demolition by a public campaign, as were the fronts of the 1910 Times Building and the fine, 19th-century Lettice and Sears Building. Behind these elegant façades, there are three floors of stores selling everything from fashion and gifts to handmade chocolates and gourmet food.

Emily Carr, one of Canada’s best-known artists, was born in 1871 in this charming, yellow clapboard house. It was built in 1864 by prominent architects Wright and Saunders, under instruction from Emily’s father, Richard Carr. Located just a few minutes walk from Inner Harbour, both the house and its English-style garden are open to visitors. All the rooms are appropriately furnished in late 19th-century period style, with some original family pieces. Visitors can see the dining room where Emily taught her first art classes to local children. Emily’s drawing of her father still sits upon the mantel in the sitting room where, as an eight-year-old, she made her first sketches.

In the late 19th century this delightful park was used for stabling horses, but in 1888 John Blair, a Scottish landscape gardener, redesigned the park to include two lakes and initiated extensive tree planting. Once a favorite haunt of artist Emily Carr, this peaceful 74.5-ha (184-acre) park is now renowned for its lofty old trees (including the rare Garry oaks, some of which are over 400 years old), picturesque duck ponds, and a 100-year-old cricket pitch.

This popular gallery’s contemporary facilities are located in the heritage neighborhood of Rockland, a few blocks west of Craigdarroch Castle. Inside, visitors will find a diverse presentation of exhibitions, including contemporary, Canadian, heritage, and national touring exhibitions. On permanent exhibition is the work of British Columbia’s premier artist, Emily Carr, featuring her paintings of the British Columbian coastal forests and depictions of the lives of native peoples, as well as excerpts from her writings and archival photographs.

In its quaint courtyard garden, the gallery also houses the only original Japanese Shinto shrine in North America.

Completed in 1890, Craigdarroch Castle was the pet project of respected local coal millionaire Robert Dunsmuir. Although not a real castle, the design of this manor home was based on that of his ancestral home in Scotland and mixes several architectural styles such as Roman and French Gothic.

When the castle was threatened with demolition in 1959, a group of local citizens formed a society that successfully battled for its preservation. Today, the restored interior of the castle is a museum that offers an insight into the lifestyle of a wealthy Canadian entrepreneur.

The castle is noted for having one of the finest collections of Art Nouveau lead-glass windows in North America, and many of the rooms and hallways retain their patterned wood parquet floors and carved paneling in white oak, cedar, and mahogany. Every room is filled with opulent Victorian furnishings from the late 19th century and decorated in original colors such as deep greens, pinks, and rusts. Several layers of the paint have been painstakingly removed from the drawing room ceiling to reveal the original hand-painted and stencilled decorations beneath, including wonderfully detailed butterflies and lions.

The present Government House building was completed in 1959 after fire destroyed the 1903 building, which was designed by renowned architect Francis Rattenbury.

As the official residence of the Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia, the Queen’s representative to the province, the house is not open to the public, but visitors can view 5.6 ha (14 acres) of stunning public gardens with beautiful lawns, ponds, an English country garden, and a Victorian rose garden. From Pearke’s Peak, a mount formed from the rocky outcrops that surround the property, there are marvelous views of the grounds.