Saturday Aug 16

GREAT DAY!!  I don’t know if I can even cover all of it.  We started at the Public gardens in Halifax. They are completely free and, even though they were devastated by a hurricane in 2003, they are beautiful. 

 

 

 

 

From the gardens we went to the Citadel fort, which was built in the 1600’s as a British defense of the harbor from possible attack by the French.  Most of the fort is original and, although built to defend the harbor, has never been attacked.  It was staffed by people dressed in Scottish uniforms.  I asked why they were dressed that way since this was an English fort.  They explained that Scotland was part of the British Empire at that time and the fort was manned by a Scottish brigade.    They fired muskets and cannons and played drums and bagpipes. 

 

 

 

 

From the fort we headed to Pier 21 where we went through the Immigrant museum.  It is dedicated to the positive affect that immigrants have had on Canada.  One of the most amusing stories we heard was about a child who was leaving Europe on a ship with her mother.   She didn’t want to go and leave the moon.  Her mother assured her that she talked with the Captain and he had tied a rope to the moon and would bring it with them.  The child went out on the ship every night to see if the moon was still with them until they arrived in Halifax with the moon intact! 

 

 

 From there we proceeded on the Harbor Walk to the Maritime Museum.  Here we learned more about the sinking of the Titanic, including that the survivors and the dead were brought to Halifax.  There were so many dead who were either unidentified or whose family could not afford to return them to England that the ship liner had a special place dedicated in the local cemetery and provided headstones for each person.  Those who were not identified were listed by a number which was engraved on their stone.  While that seemed to be such a large tragedy we learned about the Halifax disaster which occurred 5 years later.  A ship, loaded with TNT, caught fire in the harbor and exploded.  It destroyed much of Halifax and killed over 2,000 people.  We also learned that Massachusetts was one of the first to immediately send help to Halifax.  They provided such assistance that Halifax has a day during the year dedicated to their honor. 

 

 

As we left and walked down the Board walk we noticed that their trash receptacles have three openings (cans, paper and garbage).  They are serious about the environment. In addition to the "odd" things we saw, there was a vessel that I thought was a tour boat and learned it was a PRIVATE  YACTH!  I never saw a private yacht this big.

 
 

 
As we went further down to the "Sea Port" we saw the cutest "tug boat" being used as a tour boat of the harbor.  We decided that this would be Brooks' favorite picture of the entire trip!  I wanted to ride the Harbor Hopper but we ran out of time.  Maybe tomorrow.

 

 We ate at the Bluemoon II where James had a full lobster.  I tasted it but it is not my favorite food. 

 

On the way to the hotel, our GPS froze up!!  Thank goodness we had decent directions on how to get there and we just went “backwards.”  We decided that if it didn’t “un-freeze” we had no choice but buy another one.  DAH!  We brought it into the hotel hoping the battery would run down and it would “un-freeze”.  Regardless, as I said, it was a GREAT day!