Canadian Maritime Provinces

The Tour Begins: Halifax, Nova Scotia

Friday, August 3 we flew to Halifax, Nova Scotia from Montreal. This was the beginning of our main tour of the Canadian Maritime Provinces. We learned from our guide, Anne, that Nova Scotia means New Scotland. Since I am part Scottish, I decided that it could be very interesting.


We checked into the Atlantica Hotel. The next morning after breakfast we met the rest our tour members. There are 31 of us now. After the welcome session where our Program Director, Anne, went over all the important information we need to know and after we introduced ourselves, we headed out on a bus tour of the city. The first stop was at the cemetery where 150 victims of the Titanic disaster were buried. Three ships from Halifax were sent to recover victims and many of them are interred in this cemetery. This includes a baby, who was later identified through relatives’ DNA.


We moved on to the Citadel where they set off a canon blast at precisely 12:00 Noon each day. We were able to witness the ceremony from fairly close. (See small video below.)


Our afternoon was spent roaming the waterfront, but first was lunch at the Stubborn Goat Beer Garden where we had our first lobster roll. We had just heard of them, but didn’t know what to expect: turns out it was a hotdog bun with lots of shredded lobster meat on it all resting on a bed of excellent French fries. It was a hot afternoon so after doing some walking around we were happy to visit the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. They had a small, but nice, display of ships, models, and of particular interest were the steam ships, including a model of the Titanic. The bus picked us up at 3:30 and we headed for a short rest at the hotel before heading back down to the Waterfront Warehouse Restaurant for our full group Welcome dinner. The haddock we had pre-ordered was very good.


The next day we visited Peggy’s Cove and Lunenburg.


Grace and Paul​