Victoria

They say you can get around in Victoria without a car quite easily. What they meant to say was, "You can get to all the tourist traps in Victoria without a car quite easily."

We were rather disappointed. Don't get me wrong; it's one of the prettiest towns around -- nice harbour, seaplanes landing every few minutes, gardens, nice architecture, etc. Underneath, though, there's just no substance.

The Royal BC Museum was a letdown. The First Peoples gallery was rather dry (mostly fact after fact); the modern history gallery was amusing for all the wrong reasons (a display on life in Canada in the 1990s...). The temporary exhibits (think: games with a thin veil of education applied) were a strange sight, as they were on loan from the U.S. The "Speed" exhibit used imperial units and bits of U.S. history everywhere. The "Fore the Planet" mini-golf game was non-location centric up until we got to the part about the migratory path of some bird. The map of the Americas you putted on omitted Canada entirely.

Ah, well. Vancouver should be better, from what I've been told. And Toronto, Montreal, and Charlettetown (PEI) were all quite enjoyable.

Everything has gotten more expensive, though, with the C$ up near US 90¢.