Trip Report!! ABD Canadian Maritimes: Nova Scotia/Prince Edward Island/New Brunswick 8/25 - 9/1/24 - Updated 12/29/24

[sayhello]

So here we go! This is my trip report for my Canadian Maritimes ABD. This ABD goes to Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick.

I'd been to Nova Scotia in 1996 with Backroads. My first "Adventure" trip. (Oi! That's a long time ago!). But that trip did the Western half of Nova Scotia, so except for the capitol of Halifax, there was no overlap with this trip. I'd wanted to go back & see more of the area for a long time, plus I am a HUGE Anne of Green Gables geek, and this trip included a day exploring areas of PEI that inspired the book. So I was really looking forward to this trip!

I decided to do some pre-days before the ABD. I started with 2 days in Quebec City, and then spent 5 days with my sister who lives in Montreal. With these detours, really the only airline that worked getting there was Air Canada. I really, really hate Air Canada. I have had tons of issues with them from canceled flights to lost luggage, so I wasn't too thrilled about it, but decided to bite the bullet.

Travel and Pre-Day 1 - Quebec City

So things did not start out well. I got an email late Thursday night that the first leg of my early Friday morning flight from Ohio to Toronto had been cancelled due to mechanical issues with, apparently, the one plane flying back & forth between Ohio and Toronto. They had rebooked both flights (Ohio to Toronto to Quebec City) and the email said I could follow the link and explore my options. But the only option listed was a HORRID flight that went from Ohio to Dulles to Ottawa to Quebec City, with only 35 minutes between flights! And there was no way to change it on the website. I could either accept this horrid new flight or not. NO WAY!! I finally got ahold of a customer service rep on the phone, and after informing him that their new flights were NOT acceptable (can you imagine trying to make a connection in DC in 35 minutes???) we went back and forth for what seems like a couple of hours before we came up with an acceptable alternative. The hardest part was that my ride to the airport was at the movies with her phone turned off, and I couldn't verify if the new times were good for her. I was also now leaving 4 hours later, with a 5+ hour layover at LaGuardia! And I was arriving in Quebec City around midnight. Not preferable, but at least I would be getting there (hopefully!) But they'd had to book me on United to accomplish this.

So anyways, once that all got worked out, I did manage to get to Quebec City on Friday without a lot of issues. I'm not a fan of United, either, but they're better than Air Canada!

I'd found a nice boutique hotel called the Hôtel du Vieux-Québec in the Upper Old Town area of Quebec City, within walking distance of pretty much everything I planned to check out over the next 2 days. It was a relatively tiny room, but it was well laid out, and extremely well located, so I was fine with that.







I settled in, and went to sleep. Fortunately, I hadn't booked anything until 1pm the next day.

One of the perks of this hotel was that if your reservation included breakfast, it was a continental breakfast every morning that was delivered to your room in a little basket. They actually had a hook on the wall outside the room door that they would leave the basket hanging on each morning. The breakfast consisted of a couple of pastries, a cup of yogurt, some cheese and juice. It was really quite a nice breakfast. There was a coffee maker in the room, and they also had a machine in the lounge on the main floor that made fancy coffee drinks. I was all set. I had a bit of a sleep-in and a very leisurely morning of breakfast, reading and a long, hot shower.



Then I headed out to walk across the Old Town to my first destination: A guided tour of the fabulous historic hotel, the Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac.

The hotel does not run these tours, but the tour company has a desk in the lobby of the hotel, and when I arrived, one of the doormen was easily able to tell me where on the boardwalk outside I was to meet the tour. We had a costumed tourguide, whose "name" was Sir Sandford Fleming, a well-known Canadian engineer and inventor of the late 1800's.



He described to us in fascinating detail the evolution of the Chateau Frontenac, which was built over many years, in many phases.

After a time discussing the building of the Hotel, we then went inside to check out various areas of Chateau, many of which are closed to the general public unless you are attending an event in the area.

The Lobby. I do love the deep blue ceiling.



The gold sculpture hanging over the wine room is an actual depiction of the St. Lawrence river as it flows through Canada.



A view from the very expensive dinner restaurant out to the riverfront.





This area was originally the women's lounge where the women would congregate while the men hung out in their smoking room. It's now an event room for wedding receptions and things like that.



Continued in next post.

 

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Looking down to the Dufferin Terrace (the boardwalk), the Lower Old Town and the St. Lawrence River.



We then went to check out the ballroom. Quite nice.





After the tour was over, I decided to return to the more casual "Le Sam" Bistro that our guide had pointed out, for a late lunch. I checked the menu, and they had French Onion soup, which I really love. (I asked, and they really *do* call it "French Onion Soup" not just "Onion Soup"). The hostess said they had the best French Onion soup in the city. So I decided to give that a try.

It was a very pretty space. I had the soup, a small Caesar chicken salad and a fruit and angelfood dessert. The soup was OK, but honestly, a bit on the bland side. But the salad was very yummy, and the dessert was *spectacular*! (In fact the table next to me heard me exclaiming over it and decided to order it themselves!)









After lunch, I checked out the shops in the Chateau and then did some wandering around the Dufferin Terrace and the area around the Chateau.

Looking down from the Terrace to the Lower Old Town. It's quite a hike down there (and then back up) so I didn't head there since I would be checking this area out on a walking tour the next day. But it looked really cool.





I then decided to start heading back towards my hotel.

Continued in next post.

 

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I walked to the Cathedral-Basilica of Notre-Dame de Québec. As I was walking up to it, I noticed a sign pointing towards a door on the side, with a separate walkway up (and several people headed that way) so I decided to check this door out, and go inside the Basilica. The door was a large bronze door, with a figure of Jesus embossed on the outside, and what I assumed to be Mary on the inside. It was very cool. It was not until the next day that I found out that this is a very special door. It is one of only 7 Holy Doors in the world, gifted to the Basilica by the Holy See. It is the only one of the Holy Doors outside of Europe. Apparently people will make pilgrimages to go through the Holy Door. It is only occasionally open, and I happened to hit it when it was open. The inside of the Basilica is really quite beautiful, too.













There were some interesting art pieces around the town.



It turned out my hotel was on a main pedestrian street. It was quite lively during the day, but I didn't find it at all noisy at night. It probably helped that my room was not in the front of the hotel. But it was very nice, as an array of restaurants and shops were easily accessible from my hotel.





Up Next: Day 2 of my pre-days in Quebec City.

 

[sayhello]

Sorry it's taken so long to continue this report! Onwards:

Days 2 & 3 of my pre-days in Quebec City.

My 2nd day in Quebec City opened with a drizzly rain. I had a tour of Old Town (Upper and Lower) scheduled for today. This historic part of Quebec City is a walled city. The hotel I was staying at was just inside the wall (more on that later!) Fortunately, it was not cold or windy, so the rain was an annoyance, but not enough for me to even consider not going! Directions to the starting point of the tour were confusing, as the address came up in one place (at a dead-end road) but the actual place was further down, off a pedestrian walkway. I finally made it there, just in time for the start of the tour.

Our tour guide was a very personable man who had been doing this sort of thing for a long time, and had recently returned to guiding after he retired from his day job. I learned a *lot* about the history of the area and how it went from being a very French colony to a (sort of) British one.

It was pretty cloudy. I was really glad that I'd seen the riverfront in the sunlight the day before, because you really could not see much of anything off the shore.



We spent some time hearing about the boardwalk area along the waterfront (called the Terrasse Dufferin) which included our Guide's memories of taking his children to the toboggan run that you can see coming down the hill at the far end of the boardwalk. (You can also see the Citadel behind it, up on the hill. More on that later!)



We visited various areas of the Upper Old Town, including the area near my hotel. I was a little surprise (d'oh!) when our guide pointed out that one of the gates out of the city was easy walking distance from there. I just hadn't walked far enough that direction to actually see it.



We then checked out the school still run by the Ursuline nuns. Our guide had some funny family stories about his mother studying at that school. We went inside their chapel (where a trio of musicians were rehearsing, so we had a lovely musical accompaniment. The place echoed wonderfully, so my videos came out sounding very chaotic, whereas it was not in real life.





Next we headed down to the Lower Old Town. We took the stairs and ramps down, which meant we *really* had to be careful, because it was all damp from the rain (although it had stopped raining at this point). I kind of wished I'd worn my hiking boots!



Looking back up at the Chateau Frontenac in Upper Old Town.



Our guide took us to the "Place Royale" square, and pointed out the various buildings surrounding this central square, and the history behind a lot of them, including Quebec City's Basilica Notre-Dame Des Victoires.



He then took us to see the the Fresque des Québécois, which is painted on the side of one of the old buildings. It is a Trompe l'oeil painting (made to look 3D) which shows various historical periods and people of this area of Old Town. It was very cool!



You can see in this closeup that there are figures from various historical periods, including modern day.



Continued in next post.

 

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From there, the tour ended on Petit-Champlain Street, near the foot of the "Funiculaire".



I had the option at that point to either take the Funicular back up or explore the Lower Town. I decided to spend a bit more time in Lower Town, and asked our tour guide for a recommendation for somewhere I could get a light lunch. He recommended a pub a few blocks away. So off i went.

I found the pub. It was a quaint, old place, with a nice little seating area out in front (It had umbrellas, and they'd wiped everything off from the rain).





It was really humid inside, so I decided to eat outside. I looked over their small menu, and decided to, once again, have French Onion soup and a salad.

OMG, the people at the bistro at the Chateau Frontenac were delusional!! *THIS* was by a landslide the best French Onion soup in town! It was *SO* flavorful and delicious. I told the servers this and they chuckled and said they hear that all the time. The owner comes in once a week and makes the soup, and it's been a favorite around town for years. Yumm!



Once I was done with lunch, I walked around Lower Old Town for a while, intending to eventually end up back at the Funicular, so that I could take it back up to Upper Old Town. I had no desire to tackle those stairs going *up*!

But somehow I ended up turned around, and found that eventually, if you walk counter-clockwise along the walls, you end up back on the Rue Saint-Jean, where my hotel was! So I'd managed to get back to Upper Old Town without taking the Funicular or walking up the long, steep stairs! It was a much more gradual, easy slope going around. *And* I saw a different part of the area than before. I didn't get to experience the Funicular, but other than that, I was really happy with this turn of events.

So since I was right by my hotel, I went up to my room and re-grouped, and decided to head out again to check out the City Gate at the end of Rue Saint-Jean. I also had heard there was a really good ice cream place on the way there, and since I'd had a light lunch, I could indulge!

I got confused by the ice cream place, though. They advertised all sorts of flavors, but what was in the window did *not* look like ice cream. It turned out that the ice cream was all vanilla soft-serve, but what was in the window was variously flavored hard shell sauces that they *dipped* it in. So you could pick whatever flavor you wanted. I went with a really decadent dark chocolate brownie flavor with cookie crumbles on top. It was wonderful!

I found a bench to sit on to devour my ice cream, and watched some hunky firemen doing something or other just in front of the Gate.



There were two areas beyond the walled city that our guide had mentioned and that I had noted on the map and was interested in checking out. One was the Parliament Building that houses the Assemblée nationale du Québec (the legislative body for the province of Quebec). The grounds are lovely, as is the building. Unfortunately, the building was not open to the public that day, so I just got to walk around the grounds. It was a bit of a climb to get there, but very worth it.





The view of the Chateau Frontenac from the gardens.



From there I wanted to head over to the Citadel, which you can see from various vantage points in Old Town. The views from up there were supposed to be beautiful. But somehow, despite how it looked on the map, it turned into one of those "you can't get there from here" things. I kept getting really close, but then there'd be a moat or a fence or something else in the way. I pretty much had to climb back down to street level and then back up to get to the entrance to the Citadel.



I made it up there just as they had finished their changing of the guard.



I decided not to do the museum, as I was more interested in checking out the grounds and walking the walls and seeing the views. So off I went along the path to the wall.

Continued in the next post.

 

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The views from the Citadel *were* quite lovely! Fortunately the clouds had lifted a bit, so I got to see a lot of the view.





I then strolled back down to town, and headed back to the area near my hotel. I went to a little place called "Paillard" to grab some dinner. It's very similar to Pret A Manger in the UK, which I love. (Lots of pastries and soup and quiches and things like that). I got a lovely slice of quiche and some mushroom soup and bread for dinner.



I needed to be back in my room at that point because friends of mine were celebrating their Anniversary that evening, and I wasn't able to make it to the festivities because I already had this trip planned & paid for when it was announced. So I Zoomed in to wish them a Happy Anniversary and watch some of the speechifying.

The next morning was a leisurely one. I was heading to Montreal that afternoon. It had started raining again, so I really didn't feel the need to head anywhere else that morning. I got ready, packed up the room, and eventually went back to Palliard for a quick lunch. I did some last-minute souvenir shopping.

I was tempted to buy one of these, but I wasn't sure I had room in my suitcase (or my home!)



Then the hotel called a cab for me, and off I went to the airport for the next phase of my pre-days: Visiting my sister who lives in Montreal!

Up Next: Pre-days in Montreal

 

[Alison S]

Thanks for writing this report! I've always wanted to go to Quebec City, and I have been to the areas the ABD covers so I am interested to see what the trip is like compared to what I've done before.

 

[sayhello]

Thanks for writing this report! I've always wanted to go to Quebec City, and I have been to the areas the ABD covers so I am interested to see what the trip is like compared to what I've done before.

I should have more up soon!

Sayhello

 

[sayhello]

Pre-days in Montreal

After my lovely days in Quebec City, I headed to Montreal for a few days. My sister lives in Montreal and has for 40+ years (she married a man from Toronto). She and her hubby are now empty nesters, and she is (mostly) retired, so it was mostly just the 2 us, with her showing me around her favorite spots (her husband gamely did join us for our dinners while I was there). I'd been to Montreal a few times over the years, but mostly it was for weddings and other events. I hadn't been just for a visit in 30 years!

My sister suggested we spend my first day there doing a walking tour of old Montreal, which she had never done in all her years there. She listens to a podcaster who does walking tours, which gave her the idea, but he unfortunately didn't have one during my time there. So I did some research and came up with a well-reviewed tour by a company called 16/42 Tours. (Montreal was founded in 1642).

It ended up being a splendid tour. When we headed out for the drive to Old Montreal, I made the mistake of not bringing a jacket with me, as it was pretty nice outside, and my sister said it would be even nicer downtown. I'm sure you can see where this is going. It was fairly windy downtown, and there ended up being a serious bite to it. I was *cold*!! So I ended up with (yet another!) souvenir hoodie, this time from Montreal. I actually like it a lot. It's snuggly, if a bit over-sized. And the colors (grey & bright red) happen to fit in just right with the scarlet & grey of OSU Buckeye country where I live!

Our tour started in the Place d'Armes square in historic Old Montreal. Our wonderful guide explained a lot of the history of how Montreal was founded, and the people involved. She was quite informative and personable, and I learned a lot!



A statue of some of the founders of Montreal, Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve and his wife Jeanne Mance and a few others.



A view of some of Old Montreal from the location of the original fort built near the riverfront Fort Ville-Marie at Pointe-à-Callière. (The fort is long gone, and a museum stands on the site).



We walked through a lot of the old historic part of the city, seeing the marketplace and a lot of historic monuments and even Montreal City Hall. Very stately!



The tour ended at the Bonsecours Market. It's a huge, historic indoor public market. Very cool! It still serves as a market with quite an interesting array of shops.



We had some lunch there and then decided the next thing on our agenda would be an historic home/museum called The Château Ramezay that our tour guide had pointed out during the tour. It had a really cool collection of historic artifacts from old Montreal.



We finished off the afternoon with one of my and my sister's favorite activities: shopping! There's a lot of interesting shops in the area. I bought a lovely fur hat for winter (my sister bargained a great price for it!) We also checked out a gallery that had an amazing collection of (VERY EXPENSIVE!) stone dancing bears. They were really *very* whimsical and clever and beautiful! I wish I could've afforded one!

Last (but not least!) was this wonderfully crazy place - Le Petite Duck Shoppe! They had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of the most amazing rubber duckies!



Really quite a spectacular selection! It was hard picking just one, but I finally settled for my standard - a Unicorn duck!

We headed back to my sister's place, and finished off the day with dinner with her daughter, son-in-law and their kids. They are *SO* freakin' grown up and adult. I feel so old!

The next day we headed to downtown Montreal, which is much more modern than Old Montreal, but still had some cool older architecture.

We went to see an exhibition called "Saints, Sinners, Lovers and Fools: Three Hundred Years of Flemish Masterworks" at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. It was really a fascinating look at the history of the great Flemish painters from the Netherlands of 1400 to 1700. I was really quite impressed! A lot of the artists were quite ahead of their time. It's a very extensive collection, and they did a wonderful job of laying it out so that you saw the progression and development of the various styles of these masters over the years, and how society affected their art and vice-versa.

The detail on this portrait was amazing!



This is a closeup of the woman's embroidered bodice/skirt. It looks like a photo!



You can't really tell from this photo, but this one almost looked like the man was standing looking through a hole in the wall!



Continued in next post.

 

[sayhello]

The details of the paintings within the painting was so interesting!



We did a fun collage art project at the museum. My masterpiece!



We did some walking around downtown (even though it was drizzling a bit) and came across this really bizarre entrance to a modern office building that had apparently been abandoned for a while. It was so random that we almost thought it was an art installation or something, until we walked around the building and saw that the whole thing *was* fenced in and closed off!



We also checked out the Barbie Expo, which is a Barbie museum with 100's of Barbies from the earliest ones to some of the rarest and most expensive dolls.

We then headed back to my sister's and she and my brother-in-law took me out to a lovely Japanese restaurant for dinner.

The next day saw us heading to a different area of Montreal. Instead of driving, we took the Metro (really quite convenient, clean and safe in Montreal -- I *wish* we had a system like that here in Central Ohio!)

We hit a very fun museum, the Museum of Illusions Montreal. It's just what it sounds like, a museum of interactive optical illusions. Some of them were a bit hard to see, but the vast majority of them were amazing illusions! We just wandered the place, and had fun looking and participating and reading tons of explanations.



My sister also took me to the Palais des congrès de Montréal, which is a vast convention center. The entrance and the interior are really beautiful for a convention center, and there's a lot of art there.



We also went to the World Trade Center of Montreal (Centre de commerce mondial de Montréal). It's a really beautiful complex. They have a piece of the Berlin wall prominently displayed there.






The complex also has shops and a food court and apartments facing a central square. The central square is made to look like you are outside in an actual square in a neighborhood. The illusion is *quite* well done. It's a lovely place, and my sister says she likes to go there when it's really ugly outside, because it *almost* feels like she's outside, without having to brave the weather.







We then headed to have dinner with my nephew and his wife & kids, and then went back to my sister's to pack up. The next day I was heading to Halifax, where my Canadian Maritimes ABD was going to start in a couple of days!

I really enjoyed my visit, and Montreal is a really beautiful city!!

Up next: Travel and pre-days in Halifax, Nova Scotia!

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[sayhello]

I thought I had some more photos from the Museum of Illusion. They didn't show up on my phone at first because my sister took them! I thought they were cute/funny!











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[Eastridge]

Thanks for doing this report! I realize you haven't gotten to the ABD part of the trip yet, but I also appreciate the write-ups on Quebec City and Montreal. Never been there and those are places I hope to eventually visit.

 

[sayhello]

Thanks for doing this report! I realize you haven't gotten to the ABD part of the trip yet, but I also appreciate the write-ups on Quebec City and Montreal. Never been there and those are places I hope to eventually visit.

You're welcome! I figured I'd include those days in case someone else wanted to go there for pre-days (or I guess just wanted to go there!) Quebec City and Montreal are both beautiful and fascinating cities! I highly recommend them!

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[CaliforniaGirl09]

Ditto from me. Really enjoying and how nice that you got to spend such great time with your sister.

 

[sayhello]

Ditto from me. Really enjoying and how nice that you got to spend such great time with your sister.

Thank you! So glad you're enjoying it. And yes, it was nice to spend some quality time with her!

Sayhello

 

[sayhello]

Travel and pre-days in Halifax, Nova Scotia

The next day, after a leisurely brunch at my sister's favorite bagel shop, she drove me to the airport in Montreal to catch my flight to Halifax. When I was checking in, the Air Canada agent looked at my carry-on and told me it was too big, and I had to check it. (Not gate check it. Check it in check it.) First off, it's an "International size" carry-on, and definitely on the small size for a hard-sided carry-on. I have never had an issue fitting it in the overhead compartment except on small regional planes where you could barely fit a loaf of bread in the overheads! I'd checked, and the plane had full-sized compartments. There was no way it was too big. So as I started to answer, she cut me off and said, "Put it in the sizer". Which I'd never had an issue with. Except it *didn't go in*!! I started to panic, but then I realized that the handle had not fully retracted. It then got a bit stuck in the sizer, and I had to struggle with it, but I finally got it in properly, so she "let" me keep it. But she commented to me that I was awfully stressed out, and should just, basically, "chill out". What I *WANTED* to say to her was "You know why I'm stressed? The previous time I flew with you people, you LOST my checked bag for 3 days out of a 3 1/2 day trip, and I wasn't about to turn over both my checked bag and my carry-on to you!!! No way!" But I knew arguing with her was not a good idea, so I just said "Yep", and let it go at that. (Spoiler: it fit just fine).

After a relatively uneventful flight to Halifax (and Yay! my suitcase made it!) I was met by my driver in the Halifax airport. He was a fun, talkative guy, and gave me some suggestions of a couple of seafood places to try for dinner that were walking distance from the hotel. It was a *gorgeous* day! There was a *TON* of traffic heading into Halifax, so it took quite a bit longer to get to the hotel than it should have. But finally, I was dropped off at the Halifax Marriott Harbourfront. Like the name says, it's *right* on the Harbor (or Harbour ).



I had booked 2 pre-nights at the Marriott myself and had gotten an excellent deal on a harbor view room. It was almost $200USD less than booking it through ABD, and ABD had finally agreed to still provide the transfer since I'd booked the same Hotel that the ABD started at (they had said it was a special request that had to be approved, which took 2 months). I had requested with Marriott to be able to stay in the same room for the first night of the ABD. The room ABD had me in was a step down from the room I'd reserved, so they told me it would cost $70CAD to upgrade the ABD room for the one night. I figured that it was probably worth it (and it turned out I was right!)

My room at the Marriott was a lovely corner room with views of the harbor on 2 sides. It was on the top floor, concierge level of the hotel (although not a concierge room) and had a safe in it (apparently only concierge level rooms had safes - weird!) But as I settled in and checked out the light and the views from my room, I knew it was *way more* than worth the $70CAD investment!

The interesting angles are because the windows are dormers.











Not too shabby of a view!



I decided to head out and check out the area around the hotel and get some dinner.

This is the view from the side entrance to the Marriott.



This restaurant was one I remembered from when I'd last been in Halifax in 1996. Funnily enough, it was the table in the 2nd story box-bay window that I remembered. Just something about it that was memorable. I'd eaten on their outside patio back then.



I headed off to one of the restaurants that my driver had recommended, the Bluenose II, which is just up the road from the Marriott. The Bluenose II is a famous tall-masted sailing ship in Nova Scotia.



Continued in next Post.

 

[sayhello]

I had a delicious seafood chowder, steamed mussels, and a yummy dessert of rice pudding. It was an excellent choice!







After dinner, I decided to check out the waterfront area of the harbor and Downtown Halifax. It was well lit and lively, and felt totally safe to walk around.











The Halifax Marriott Harbourfront.



The next morning I had a good sleep-in and got some breakfast from the to-go cafe down in the lobby of the Marriott (breakfast was not included on my pre-days). I did some more wandering of the harbor area, and decided to hit Tim Horton's for lunch, just because it seemed like the thing to do!



Continued in next post.

 

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Next on my agenda was checking out the Citadel. The Citadel is an historic fort that sits up on a hill overlooking Halifax Harbor. I remembered visiting it in 1996. The walk over to the Citadel was quite nice, and you walk through the old Grand Parade Grounds in front of City Hall. It's a park now. City Hall is at one end, and St. Paul's Church is at the other end. St. Paul's is the oldest surviving Protestant church in Canada and the oldest building in Halifax.





The Halifax Town Clock on Citadel Hill (also known as the Citadel Clock) from the Parade Grounds.



It was a bright, sunny day, and while it was not particularly hot, Citadel Hill is way steeper than it appears, and the climb up is totally exposed. So it was a bit of a hike to get up to the Fort on top. But the views were lovely!



The main central building from the entrance to the Fort.





From the wall of the Fort. Between the walking and the climbing and the exposure to the sun, I felt myself suddenly get quite lightheaded and dehydrated. Thankfully, I had an electrolyte packet with me, which I poured into my 32 oz water bottle and chugged down. It worked like a charm, thank goodness! They also had a water bottle refilling station by the restrooms which I used a couple of times. I can't imagine being up there if it was actually HOT! If you wanted to do this during the summer, I would definitely suggest doing it early in the morning, and not right after lunch like I did!



They have a group of reenactors who provide all the tours and historic reenactments at the Citadel. They had a demonstration of the canon and a demonstration of a soldier "rapid-firing" a single-shot musket. (Rapid-fire is definitely relative in this case). I also tagged along on a tour of some of the buildings in the walls.







Continued in next post.

 

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They also had some of the rooms set up as they were when it was still an active Fort, and you could walk through them.



A fun fact about the Fort is that it was built and rebuilt and expanded over the years to protect the city of Halifax and Halifax Harbor from various threats of the French, the local Mi'kmaq First Peoples, even fighting from the American Civil War, but no shots were ever fired at or from the Fort.





After I finished at the Citadel, I walked back down to the Marriott via a different route. I found myself in a shopping district with a Gallery that I also recalled from 1996. It was unfortunately closed, but it was cool seeing it again. Anna Leonowens is the Anna from the novel/play/movie "Anna and the King of Siam" that the musical "The King and I" was based on. She lived for a period of time with her married daughter in Halifax (this was long after her time in Siam) where she became a local activist and an advocate for the fine arts.





I wandered the waterfront some more (it was just so nice there!)

I could see this memorial from the window of my room.



There was a beautiful, peaceful boardwalk area behind the Marriott (on the waterfront) that had a row of brightly colored Adirondak chairs sitting there, calling you to stop & gaze at the water and watch the boats go by.



As I and some others sat there, a wedding took place on the open air patio of the Marriott behind us. It was really fun to listen to the music and the ceremony.



I had dinner at a restaurant that a few people had recommended to me called McKelvie's. They had a great patio area.



While I was out on the patio, the "Frog Tour" (Harbor Hopper) went past. It's one of those hybrid things that drives around town, but is also a boat that goes in the water.



Continued in the next post.

 

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I'd read that they had really fabulous cornbread, which is a favorite of mine, so I had my standard soup (lobster bisque! Yumm!), a salad, and a small loaf of *delicious* corn bread.



After dinner, I went to check out the hours for the place I wanted to visit the next morning - The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.



I then went and sat by the waterfront for a while longer, and eventually went up to bed, ready to see a bit more of Halifax the next day, meet our Adventure Guides, and then start the ABD!!



Up Next: Day 1 of the ABD: Meet Me in the Maritimes - more around Halifax and the start of the ABD.

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