Oh, Canada. I’m looking forward to getting to know you better, now that you’re just a few hours away.

For my first foray north to British Columbia, I set my sights on Victoria, the province’s capital located on woodsy Vancouver Island. Known for its Anglophile leanings. Victoria is appropriately full of Victorian-era buildings, as well as Canada’s oldest Chinatown. As a plus, you can visit Victoria on a daytrip (albeit a long day) from Seattle.

To get there, I bought a roundtrip ticket on the Victoria Clipper, a passenger-only, high-speed hydrofoil . The trip takes about 2 1/2 hours each way so I took the first ferry out at 7:30 a.m. (ferry times vary, depending on season). Worried about seasickness, I took a non-drowsy dose of Dramamine before I boarded, but they also sell drugs on board. Unlike some other ferries I’ve taken, the Clipper seemed clean and comfortable. Beverage and food service was available and the staff did a good job of coming around to each passenger’s seat taking orders.

When we left Seattle, the skies were cloudy and I worried that my pleasant day in Victoria would not come to pass. That’s because I didn’t know about the “rain shadows” common in the Pacific Northwest. Essentially, the Olympic Mountains wring the moisture from the air, leaving some areas on the eastern side much drier than the rest of the area. Victoria falls squarely into the rain shadow, and its mostly sunny weather makes it a retirement destination in the area. Sure enough, the skies cleared about 20 minutes outside Victoria.

You do need a passport to visit Canada, so you enter customs as soon as you disembark in Victoria. When I said that I was a writer, I was pulled aside by the customs officials for what they said was a random check. It only took 15 minutes, but it was a little surprising.

Normally, I avoid bus trip packages like the plague. But I wanted see Butchart Gardens, about 30 miles outside Victoria’s port and a cab would have cost about $50 each way. My combined ticket (which included the roundtrip ferry trip, admission and transportation to the Gardens) cost $126. Separately, it would have cost $145 just for the ferry alone, so this is one time when a package tour makes sense. My seeming inability to stay awake on a bus meant that I missed some of the drive out there, unfortunately.

Built by cement king Robert Pim Butchart and his wife Jennie, Butchart Gardens began in 1904 as a project to reclaim a quarry pit near their Vancouver Island estate. By the 1920s, her work had turned into a tourist attraction that brought more than 50,000 people a year.

There’s something incongruous about how controlled the gardens appear, surrounded as they are by the natural woods. It’s a weird juxtaposition.

The Gardens are spread across  55 acres and are broken up into different types of arrangements. There’s a Japanese Garden, a hanging basket garden and a grove of old growth trees.

From June to September, though, the Garden’s main appeal lies in its diverse rose garden. From the moment you walk into this area of the gardens, your nose twitches from the heavy scent and your eyes flit around all the different displays, as it’s all so colorful that your mind doesn’t know where to look first.  Gables drip with roses and the walkways boast more than 117 varieties of tea rose plants alone.

Vancouver Island is a significant spot in First Nation history. A few totems speak to this; carved by different tribes, the posts were given to Butchart in recognition of its status as a Canadian historical site.

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I certainly wasn’t the only one enjoying the Gardens on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. Butchart draws visitors from all over the world; I heard people speaking Japanese, French and German, among other languages. Flowers are a worldwide draw, it seems – I saw similar diversity when I’d visit Longwood Gardens outside Philadelphia.

The Butchart Gardens estate has a dock that leads down to Tod Inlet. On a sunny day, when you can see the Olympic Mountains in the distance, it’s hard to imagine a better view of the Juan de Fuca Strait.

The most formal part of the garden houses an Italian gelateria, and there’s also a formal dining room that serves afternoon tea. I chose to go back to Victoria and have my bit of Britain at the Fairmont Empress instead.

For me, the two hours at the Gardens provided by the tour seemed like enough time. I made it through the entire property with no problem in that amount of time. If you’re an avid gardener, though, and know that you like to linger, you might want to think about renting a car and coming out on your own. It would also be great to come out here during the holiday season, when Butchart Garden pus up an elaborate light display.

Coming up next: Tea at the Fairmont Express