Old Town Victoria, Canada's Oldest Chinatown (1858), Fan Tan Alley & Market Square

Walk ten minutes north from the Inner Harbour up historic Government Street and the grand Edwardian hotels give way to 19th-century red-brick gold-rush warehouses, cast-iron storefronts, hidden courtyard plazas, and the oldest surviving Chinatown in Canada (and second-oldest in North America after San Francisco!), established in 1858.

1. Canada's Oldest Chinatown (Fisgard Street) & 89cm-Wide 'Fan Tan Alley'

When gold was discovered in the Fraser River Canyon in 1858, thousands of Chinese miners and merchants sailed into Fort Victoria from California and Guangdong Province, building a self-contained district along Fisgard Street (designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1995):

• The Gate of Harmonious Interest (Tong Ji Men — Fisgard & Government St): erected in 1981 in partnership with Victoria's twin city of Suzhou, China, this 12-metre-tall red, gold and blue ceramic-tiled archway is guarded by two hand-carved stone lions and inscribed with the motto 'To Work Together with One Heart' and 'To Help Each Other in Harmony'.
• Squeeze Through 'Fan Tan Alley' (Narrowest Commercial Street in North America!): mid-block between Government and Store Streets on the south side of Fisgard, duck into Fan Tan Alley! Named after the traditional Chinese counting game of Fan-Tan played in the gambling dens and opium parlours that lined this hidden brick passage in the 1880s, the alley pinches down to just 89 centimetres (35 inches) wide at its Pandora Avenue end! Today, tiny wooden doorways inside the brick canyon open into independent record shops, umbrella boutiques, leather studios, ice-cream parlours and the Chinese Public School (1899/1909) around the corner!

2. Market Square, Lower Johnson ('LoJo'), Bastion Square & Munro's Books

One block south of Chinatown, explore the rest of Old Town:

1. Lower Johnson Street ('LoJo') & Market Square (560 Johnson St): admire the colorful Victorian brick facades of Lower Johnson—Canada's premier street for independent local boutiques—and step into the sunken, three-storey brick courtyard of Market Square (home to Whistle Buoy Brewing's sunny patio!).
2. Bastion Square & Munro's Books (1108 Government St): walk through Bastion Square (site of the original 1843 Fort Victoria and the 1889 Maritime Museum courthouse) to Munro's Books—co-founded in 1963 by Nobel Prize-winning Canadian author Alice Munro and housed inside a breathtaking 1909 Neoclassical Royal Bank building with 7-metre coffered ceilings and hand-painted tapestries!