Allison Louise

When I was living in Victoria, I came up with a bit of a “repertoire” of touristy things to do with friends when they came to visit. This list always included all of my favorite coffee shops, a visit to a castle where Christian Bale, AKA Batman, AKA the most beautiful man on the planet, once stood, as well as some time by the ocean and in my favorite restaurants. I worked really hard to stay away from the most touristy spots, so that I could give my friends a real taste of island life.

The thing is people come far and wide to see certain things in Victoria, one of these things being The Empress. For those of you who don’t know, The Empress is this beautiful old hotel in downtown Victoria, right along the harbor. It’s covered in green vines, and looks like it is out of an old movie, and lots of people think that it is haunted. To sum it up – it’s a fancy place for fancy people.

I myself had only ever driven past the Empress, knowing that I was not fancy enough to set foot inside. But I had a friend come to visit who wanted to see it desperately. I put it off until the very end of her visit, hoping that she would forget, mostly because I didn’t know the etiquette of the Empress, and whether you could just waltz in – were there tours for rag tag university students who couldn’t afford to stay the night? I too wanted to see what was inside, what everyone thought was so great about it, but I was not interested in the actual logistics of getting inside.

My friend, however, is the gutsiest, and she decided that we were getting in the building whether we were aloud to go inside or not. We discussed back entrances, scaling some vines, climbing in a window, and settled on the most obvious answer, sauntering through the front door and pretending that we were hotel guests.

So at 10pm on a Sunday evening, my friend and I sauntered past the valet’s, straight past the check in counter, and up the spiral staircase. My heart was beating so fast, my knees were practically knocking together, and I was sure that every sound was either an employee or a ghost, and I wasn’t sure which would actually be worse. The Empress is filled with shops and restaurants, all closed by the time we got there, so we peered through dark windows and tried to get a look behind the barriers. We were looking into a teashop when my friend elbowed me right in the ribs and motioned behind us.

A security guard.

My eyes darted around for an exit, I thought about hiding but it was way too late, we decided instead to pretend to be extremely interested in a painting next to the elevator and hope for the best.

“Isn’t it incredible?” the security guard asked.

Incredible? The amount of sweat on my brow? The grip I had on my friend’s elbow? The fact that we forgot to dress up like rich hotel guests and instead look like we just rolled out of a gutter?  

My friend recovered really quickly – “oh yes, very interesting” she said.

I realized we were discussing the painting, a picture of the Empress in the old days, “what I great view!” I added.

Then the security leaned in close, pulled out his ring of keys, looked to the left then the right and whispered, “can I show you some of my favorite rooms?”

We were completely taken aback – I was sure that it was obvious that we were trespassing. We weren’t paying for a room. We weren’t from the New York Times writing on the majesty of the Empress. We were of absolutely no value to this hotel whatsoever – in fact, we were really just there for our own gain. But we obviously agreed – secretly hoping that his “favorite room” wasn’t some sort of underground Empress jail.

We were lead through locked doors into the most incredible rooms. We saw an old library where men use to sit around and smoke cigars – the Security Guard shon his flashlight on the ceiling showing us the gold plait ceilings. He took us to the ball room where the roof use to be one large window – Harry Potter styles - and was now covered in mirrors, and into a room where if you stood in a very exact spot, you could overhear all of the conversations in the room.

When it became apparent that my friend and I were not staying in the hotel, that we had just sauntered through the front door, the Security Guard laughed and told us that we were absolutely welcome, and mentioned a few other rooms that we aught to explore on our own so he could get back to work. 

This memory remains one of my absolute favorites from my time in Victoria - so I thought it deserved a place right here on the old blog.