Exploring With Guidebook 111 Places in Victoria That You Must Not Miss

 

Using the 111 Places guidebook series is a great way to experience a place more deeply as was the case when I used 111 Places in Victoria That You Must Not Miss to discover new-to-me places and stories in a favourite city—Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

I first became aware of the 111 Places guidebook series when a colleague wrote the book for Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I read and reviewed 111 Places in Calgary That You Must Not Miss. I could not stop thinking about what places I’d feature in a similar book about my home city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It was a delight to write that book a few years later: 111 Places in Winnipeg That You Must Not Miss with photographs by Gindalee Ouskun. It has also been a delight to see how well-received that book has been.

Written for locals and experienced travellers, the illustrated 111 Places guidebook series “presents cities and regions from a wonderfully different and personal perspective.” The books feature hidden places, stories, and neighbourhoods that unlock a place’s true character, history, and flavour. Nearly all of the books are written by long-time residents of the area. People often do not explore their home cities with the same zeal as places they visit. The books contain information about many local treasures and curiosities they may not have known about. For visitors to a place, the books offer opportunity to go beyond the typical tourist attractions.

I have read a few other 111 Places books since that Calgary one, but I had not used one in my travels until a recent visit to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

My sister has lived in Victoria for four decades. My daughter lived there for two years. I have visited many times and explored many of its great attractions. I’ve written a blog post about Things to Do in Victoria as well as many posts about individual Victoria attractions. I was happy to see that some of the places I’d seen were in fact in 111 Places in Victoria That You Must Not Miss by Dave Doroghy and Graeme Menzies.

I was particularly pleased to see that the Victoria Harbour Ferry Boat Water Ballet, the salmon spawning at Goldstream Park, and the Moss Lady in Beacon Hill Park were included. But there were also a number of places I did not know about or hadn’t visited.

I was curious to see my sister’s reaction to the book. She makes a point of seeing and discovering things in her home city. She would say she knows Victoria well. But there were several places in the book she had not been aware of. She also found interesting stories in the write-ups for places she did know about.

We spent part of my ten days in Victoria using the book to explore fun places neither of us had been to. We also visited places new to me but not my sister and revisited a few places.

Some of the “new to both of us” places included a whimsical folk art fence along a country road in Metchosin, just west of Victoria, and a mammoth driftwood sculpture. 

On a Sunday morning, we watched members of the Victoria Model Shipbuilding Society sail their remote-controlled miniature ships on Harrison Pond.

We drove past a house with 15 windmill palms in its front yard.

We walked through the Quadra Village area to see the three artful manhole covers in the sidewalks. While there, we walked past The Roxy, a theatre in a Quonset hut.

We met family for lunch at the Cook Street Food Truck Village. We ate fish and chips at an old favourite, Willows Galley, which we used to walk to three decades ago when my sister lived nearby. My sister and I had a lovely lunch at the Parliamentary Dining Room, a first for both of us.

The Hands of Time are a set of 12 bronze sculptures found in various places in the city. The life-sized hands were installed in celebration of the city’s 150th anniversary in 2012 and are engaged in activities significant in Victoria’s history. My sister had previously sought these out with her granddaughters and thought it was worth my while to find them all too. It was fun to hunt them down.

We learned interesting bits of information as we read about other places. For example, we learned how Six Mile Pub, Four Mile Pub, and 17 Mile House Pub got their names. (The pubs once served as mail delivery spots and the miles were their distance from the central Victoria post office.) We read the story of the round-the-world canoe trip that inspired the Tilikum Voyage Plaque on Beach Drive.

And we went by a number of places I’d seen in previous visits, but now experienced slightly differently.

One of the more unique places in the book is the private garden of artist and author Helen Stewart. Fortunately, we were able to make an appointment to see it and meet Helen Stewart. It was a delightful and memorable experience. More about that to come in a future post.

The book was a great way to explore more of Victoria and learn more about the city. And there remain places in the book for me to explore on future visits.

There are hundreds of books in the 111 Places series featuring cities and areas around the world. After my experience of reading a few books, writing one, and now using one to explore another city, I will certainly be making the 111 Places guidebooks a go-to resource for travel to other places. They can help me explore more deeply in places I already have been to and have some familiarity with. For places that are new to me, the books can augment other top attractions lists by giving more insight into the character of a place and identifying a few more unusual attractions to add to my want-to-see list.

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