Eastern Canada 2017 - Day 8 / Halifax

KM driven: 32

Steps taken: 21 774

What a difference it makes in our stats when we aren’t changing cities!

We started the day with a big breakfast at a family chain restaurant: Smitty’s. It was just ok, not that great, and I didn’t even finish it. I am not a big fan of big breakfasts like this but we wanted table service for breakfast as opposed to McD or Tim Horton’s on the road again.

When the sun came up, we made it to Fairview Lawn Cemetery to see the graves of the Titanic victims, a goal we gave up on last night because we kept making wrong turns!! This morning’s attempt went more smoothly… only 2 wrong turns this time.

It was a very moving site and we so fortunate – we had the place all to ourselves and just as we were leaving the tour busses descended. Thank God for this excellent timing, the place would have been overrun and we would not have gotten so many nice pictures.

And the most evocative of all: JACK!!

Next on the agenda was the Citadel, but it was closed when we got there so we killed time at the Public Gardens. As you know, I never met a flower I didn’t like!!! I can’t stop taking pictures of flowers… this is just a small fraction of what I took.

The Citadel was underwhelming, I was bored.

The weather this morning was very grey and overcast, so the temps were perfect for exploring on foot. We spent most of our time at the Harbour, walking more of it than we managed yesterday.

We visited the Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 (Canada’s Ellis Island) and took a guided tour. It was ok but I was hoping something more historically evocative like the actual rooms where the immigrants were housed and the actual gates they walked through etc etc. It was more a display of random exhibits.  My expectations were completely out of line with the reality.

The museum is near the cruiseship terminal, I never cease to be amazed at how GIGANTIC they are!! And there are 5 of them in town!!!

I also tested out the panorama feature on my phone’s camera, think I need more practice to get the technique right! It came out a little wobbly.

Lunch was a challenge, the place we had picked to go was not seating people for over an hour and the next few places nearby where therefore logically all full. The influx of people from the 5 cruise liners in town did not help! We finally ended up at “Salty’s” and I loved it - we got a perfect table on the patio and the food was terrific; I’m glad our Plan A flopped.

After lunch, we went to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic and like most visitors we focused on the exhibits that covered The Halifax Explosion and The Titanic. Excellent museum, extremely informative and very detailed, but it wore me out and towards the end I was falling asleep standing up.

We stopped for a fuel up (coffee and Grand Marnier for me, coffee and Strawberry Shortcake for him) and then continued exploroing the city on foot but the sun was out by then so it was not as easy as this morning’s walk.

Supper was a diner, not very splashy for a final meal but it was good enough – we’re pretty tired and didn’t want a complicated affair.

We made it back to our hotel with no wrong turns!!! We were quite proud of ourselves.

Tomorrow we start the long drive home; Bye bye Eastern Canada it was a terrific vacation!

Eastern Canada 2017 - Day 7 / Peggy’s Cove & Halifax

KM driven: 541

Steps taken: 9 040. I’ll walk around the room later to push it over 10K.

We didn’t get all our steps in today because it was HOT! All the way up to 29°C with the humidex. It was one of those days where we were just searching for shade…  needless to say there was no hiking today!

We left Sydney before sunrise in order to get to Halifax as early as possible. Stop 1 was lunch in Peggy’s Cove, well actually at a place a little up the road that my guidebook says is one of the best seafood restaurants in the region (5km away). I tried a Lobster Roll for the first time ever and it was really good!

And what adorable salt and pepper shakers!       

                                       

Next was the Swissair 111 Memorial.

And then the Lighthouse at Peggy’s Cove OVERRUN with tourists!!

Have you ever driven around Halifax? OMG are the roads ever confusing!!!  this whole trip we made one or two easily correctable wrong turns, but Halifax is nuts. CRAZYNESS! If there was a wrong turn to be made anywhere, we made it. When we finally made it to the downtown area, we parked the car and explored the city on food… well…  the shady parts anyway!  There is construction EVERYWHERE but its not road works like in Montreal to that’s a nice change. Buildings are all being fixed or renovated or built – it felt to me like they were rebuilding following a natural disaster or something. Halifax reminds me a lot of Boston and I am not sure why yet.

We meandered around the Waterfront Boardwalk,

Stopped for a cool drink on a shaded patio,

Then continued our stroll around town.

We said we’d have supper around 6ish, but by 5 we were so hot and so fed up we decided to eat early. Ironically, once of the things I wanted to see in Halifax was John Snow’s mortuary for it’s link to the Titanic Tragedy (his mortuary interred many of the victims) but then I learned it had been turned into a restaurant and there was nothing left of historical significance. Well, guess what: The resto we just happened to pick for dinner turned out to be that very one!

The food was unbelievably good, best meal of the trip by a mile! I even had dessert!! I never usually do since I don’t have a sweet tooth and therefore I am rarely ever tempted but the lemon tart sounded perfect… and it WAS! I can easily recommend this place to anyone; it was out of this world.

After supper, the plan was to visit the Fairview Lawn Cemetery were many Titanic victims are buried including the evocative grave of a certain “J Dawson”. Sadly, we made a bunch or wrong turns again so I suggested we forget it and concentrate on finding (and checking in to) our hotel since I didn’t want to drive around searching for it in the dark.  THANK GOD we did that because we made I think at least 3 wrong turns trying to get to it! We’ll try the cemetery again tomorrow morning.

We have the entire day in Halifax tomorrow, I’m looking forward to it… despite the fact it will be another hot and sticky one!

Good night!