Where to settle for university in Victoria, British Columbia.

June 3, 2006 3:31 PM

Looking for advice about living in Victoria, British Columbia.

I found out yesterday that I got into UVic for grad school and that my program starts in two months. I'm unfamiliar with the city, I spent a weekend or two there when I was younger, and am not really familiar with the quarters of town, or local things I should be aware of. I'll be moving in the middle of July from Montreal.

What I'm looking for is advice on areas that are biking distance from the university, preferably in an artist/student area with shops and groceries near by.

Also, any advice about events like a weekly farmers market, good microbrew bars, places for rock shows, or a conversational French group would be greatly appreciated.

posted by dobie to society & culture (18 comments total)

Congratulations! I didn't go to UVic, but lived in Victoria every summer while I was doing my uni degrees. I'd say that you want to live in or around Cook Street Village. It is the artist area of the city with the hippest coffee shop and video store in the city. The larger area surrounding Cook St. Village is called Fairfield.

From here you are walking distance to the main downtown area (Douglas & Government Streets and the Bay Centre) - or a 20 minute stumble home on a Saturday night. My friends used to bike to campus from here and it took about 20 minutes, though you're close to the bus route as well.

This is the website you want for apartment rentals (the classified section of Victoria's main paper - the Times Colonist.) A friend of mine rented a modern one bedroom condo in Cook St. Village last week for $1100.00/month.

Enjoy your time at UVic. (And the bunnies...if you haven't visited the campus before, you'll understand what I mean when you get there.) If you have any other questions, email's in the profile.
posted by meerkatty at 4:31 PM on June 3, 2006

Oh, and the best brew pub is Swan's.
posted by meerkatty at 4:33 PM on June 3, 2006

And....sorry.....that was a TWO bedroom condo for $1100/month.
posted by meerkatty at 4:47 PM on June 3, 2006

I would suggest that the best brewpub is Spinnaker's and that Canoe Brewpub is #2, with Swan's down near the bottom. Swan's is good for buying beer to go, but the food is mediocre, the service less so, and it's always too crowded.

Cook Street Village is within biking distance of UVic, but it's all uphill on the way to school. It's fairly laid-back and bohemian.
posted by solid-one-love at 4:59 PM on June 3, 2006

UVic also has an off campus housing list that I uesd everytime I was looking for accomodation in Victoria.
posted by Mitheral at 6:29 PM on June 3, 2006

Aha. Soon there will be enough for a Victoria meetup.

The UVIC housing listings are here. As a graduate student, don't be afraid to look at the faculty lists as well, since the advertisers are really trying to avoid the most raucous elements....

I second Cook Street Village, and also second that it is uphill to UVIC (well, most places are) and it doesn't have the best bus connection. And it is relatively expensive, and getting more so. An alternative, more up and coming area, would be the Hillside & Quadra area. Still some rough patches, but more and more students are living there. Its closer to UVIC and has better buses. Recently a couple of great cafes have gone in there, a good deli, cheap movies at the Roxy, and generally it is a cheaper place to live, and not much further from downtown than Fairfield. Cook St has, in its favour, easy access to the gorgeous Dallas Road waterfront walking/biking areas. You could also do worse than live in the North Jubilee - extreme eastern Fernwood - Oak Bay border area. Somewhere like Redfern Street. Again, much closer to UVIC, great buses, extremely central, probably cheaper, and all the amenities. Pic-a-flic is the best video store but Yo Video at Fort & Foul Bay is surprisingly good considering it is tiny. Avoid the neighbourhood known as Central Park (North and NE of the Arena) and also core Fernwood by Vic High School. Nothing but grief there. Gordon head is close to campus, cheap, and boring. It depends what you are into.

Spinnakers has gone downhill since they moved the pub upstairs. Canoe Club is just as good beer and a better atmosphere. Swan's has good live music but otherwise is a bit claustrophobic. It does have a (literally) world-class collection of aboriginal art on its walls. Swan's belongs to the University of Victoria but for some reason students/faculty don't get a discount. There are quite a few ok neighbourhood pubs, most of them pretty average, often dominated by wall-sized TVs showing hockey or rowdy softball teams. Pub to avoid: Thee Douglas. Cute pub with good live music (go there on Bob Dylan's birthday, or Neil Younbg's birthday) is Thursday's.

Best place to get bread: Wildfyre wood oven bakery.
Best place to shop: Fairways at Shelbourne/Cedar Hill X Road.
Best veggies: Chinatown (or the Cook St Village greengrocers).
best cafe: Moka house is good, but Cafe Fantastico makes the best coffee hands down. Also extremely good, and funky, is Bean Around the World in Chinatown. Best cheap places to Thai and Ethiopian Places in Cook St. Best veggie place: Rebar. Best quiet unpretentious cheap semi pub quasi restaurant: the Bent Mast in James Bay. Best cheap, good movies: Cinecenta, The Roxy, MovieMondays at the asylum. Pagliacci's restaurant is a New Yorky pasta joint, cheap, cheerful, packed, live music most weeknights, good food.

At UVIC, the grad lounge actually has really good food, as does the SUB pub called 'Felicitas'. Those are the best places to eat on campus.

Anyway, Victoria has a lot to offer but you do have to work a wee bit to get at it -- its not as in your face as Vancouver is, but pretty much the same mix. Nothing like as white bread as it used to be. Ignore the tourist bullshit. You'll make friends easily in your program I am sure. You may need to be extra outgoing to make friends outside that in a reasonable span of time, it can be a bit cliquey -- people just want to give you your own space and not impose on you by being friendly. Dumb, but true.

OK well I could go on and on and in fact already have. Good luck with your move!
posted by Rumple at 7:32 PM on June 3, 2006

Oh -- conversational French -- look on the bulletin boards in the Clearihue building on campus. Rock shows: Steamer's pub, Lucky's Pub, Vertigos at UVIC, The new Arena, the Curling Club. More folky stuff -- the best place to see that is at the ummmm, converted church on Pandora whose name escapes me now. Starting a few weeks ago and running into the early fall is the Moss Street farmer's market. Chinatown is the place for veggies though, like I said.

There is still a real arty/bohemian area just north of Chinatown but it is getting pushed out slowly. Your IDEAL arty rental is one of the lofts in Chinatown -- you'll freeze off your ass, but in style.
posted by Rumple at 7:37 PM on June 3, 2006

I can help with biking info for UVic and Victoria. UVic has a Bicycle Users Committee. Its web site has a page describing cycling routes to UVic plus a cycling map of the area around UVic. You can ask the Bike Committee questions about cycling at UVic such as security and lockers. (There are some lockers available now but come September you'll have to put your name on a waiting list.) As a UVic student you'll have a U-Pass which allows unlimited access to Victoria region public transit. Many buses have bike racks.
The Greater Victoria Cycling Coalition (GVCC) is an area-wide cycling advocacy group which publishes a widely available cycling route map for Victoria and surrounding communities.
posted by jholland at 7:40 PM on June 3, 2006

Half of what I loved about Victoria--Rumours, Java, skybar, BJ's, Debauchery Thursdays--are long gone. But hell yes, the Cook Street Village is lovely.

Beacon Hill Park at sunrise.

The Inner Harbour anytime.

Mount Doug.

And Jebus H Tapdancing Christ.... drink some Shaftesbury Rainforest. You can't get it here in Ontario, and I miss it terribly.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 7:56 PM on June 3, 2006

I don't think I have much to add. I didn't live there, but I loved Cook Street Village-- my then-girlfriend lived in that neighbourhood and I was always very jealous. Dallas Road is one of the nicest walking/running/anything places you'll find. Pic-a-flic is an amazingly good video store. When I was there they had very helpful staff and a selection that is second to none outside of Vancouver (and it can even give the good ones there a run for their money).

When I lived there, I lived on campus, but also on Quadra near Hillside (I won't comment as I was in a dive of a building and it has been cleaned up a bit since then, I think), on Hillside, closer to Hillside Mall (which I liked-- Bolen Books was great), and in a mostly-residential neighbourhood in Gordonhead. The last was a nice neighbourhood but had poor bus access (on the street where we were, at least).

But, all I can say is that it is a great city to live in. Absolutely beautiful, lots of cool and interesting places, one of my favourite music stores (Ditch Records, downtown), plenty of interesting people...

But yes, it sounds like Cook Street Village is what you are after. I remember some tasty bakeries, a used book store (and, if not, Monroe's [I think] downtown on Fort is amazingly cool), two larger grocery stores across the street from each other, and a bunch of little restaurants. Downtown is a short walk, away, too. Also, there is Oak Bay, which isn't quite as cool but a nice area in its own right.

If I may echo some more, Fairway Market is my favourite grocery store, but if you are looking for something a little trendier/upscale, there is also The Market on Yates. Make sure and take some time to explore, though. One thing I liked about Victoria is that they had a lot of cool little shops, cafes, and restaurants. There are still big chains there, but the little shops seem to do pretty well, I think because they are just that much better.
posted by synecdoche at 11:38 PM on June 3, 2006

One more thing: as of about 6 months ago or so Victoria has a Craigslist page: good for the usual Craigslisty things but less active than most I imagine.
posted by Rumple at 11:39 PM on June 3, 2006

If you can find a place in Chinatown, I'd highly recommend living there. Also, some of the best parts about living in Victoria are not actually in the city but nearby it. Don't get too overwhelmed by your studies to not make some good day and weekend trips to such places as: East Sooke Park, Sooke Pot Holes, Witty's Lagoon, Pacific Rim National Park, etc. Good luck with your move.
posted by Staggering Jack at 8:58 AM on June 4, 2006

Thanks everyone!
posted by dobie at 9:40 AM on June 4, 2006

Fairways? Huh?

Thrifty Foods! The seven-layer dip in the deli section rocks!

The Times Colonist is the only paper in town; good source for rental listings. However, it's become very expensive to advertise in, so lots of property managers are advertising on rentbc.com.

Almost anywhere right in town is bikeable to UVic.

My best memories of UVic involve Harpo's, and that's long-gone, too, alas...

When you get to campus, you can walk down Sinclair Road to Cadboro Bay. I used to go sit on the beach and just look out at the water when student life stressed me out.

Bolen Books at Hillside Mall is great, and of course, the famous Munro's downtown. Also downtown is Russell or Russell's Books, for a great used selection. (Don't be fooled here. Browse the store, then go outside the store, little door right there, long stairway up, and there's the whole second floor section of the store for fiction and lit.)

General advice... This is not an inexpensive city to live in. It's also growing at an incredible pace (one little house comes down, bingo, a condo building zooms up. Dens-i-fi-cation is going on like crazy. Downtown is not what it was when I was a student. I am not comfortable downtown at night unless I am with my large, burly husband. It didn't used to be that way.

It is, however, fairly bike-friendly.

I prefer the Shaftebury Cream Ale, meself, but have some Victoria Lager while you're here!
posted by Savannah at 11:04 AM on June 4, 2006

Thanks Savannah, Victoria's growth sounds like much of BC's. I much prefer dens-i-fi-cation to urban sprawl. I'm originally from Kelowna and visiting the nauseating strip mall that it's become makes die a little bit inside.

I've lived in some rough neighborhoods, and while I'm not quite burly, I have mastered the East coast "don't fuck with me" 20 yard stare, so I'm not too worried about Victoria.

Looking forward to seeing the ocean and tall trees.
posted by dobie at 12:40 PM on June 4, 2006

General advice... This is not an inexpensive city to live in.

This is true. My living expenses dropped dramatically when I moved to Vancouver last year after having lived in Victoria for more than 30 years. Groceries, especially, are not cheap in Victoria, even if you haunt Chinatown for vegetables and Fairways for meat.
posted by solid-one-love at 2:04 PM on June 4, 2006

I prefer the Shaftebury Cream Ale, myself, but have some Victoria Lager while you're here!

My bet for best beer in town in the Phillips Brewing Longboat Double Chocolate Porter - it's a bit of liquid paradise in a dark bottle. You can get it in the bottle anywhere or, even better, on tap at the Bent Mast.
posted by Staggering Jack at 2:27 PM on June 4, 2006

Fairways? Huh?

Thrifty Foods! The seven-layer dip in the deli section rocks!

Thrifty's is a much nicer grocery store for sure, and I shop there myself quite a bit, but Fairway's is close to the university and, more importantly, it is much cheaper -- you could probably save 30% shopping there. They have a very good fish section, and excellent vegetables, as well as the cheapest herbal teas in town and a huge chinese condiment section.

All the Times-Colonist's classifieds (the only thing it is good for) are available free online. On Thursday's the TC does upcoming shws and so forth. Monday Magazine is the semi-alternative weekly that does a better job of events, readings, etc. as well as city politics that matter. Mondaymag.com, I think.

And yeah, that chocolate porter is divine.
posted by Rumple at 7:48 PM on June 4, 2006