On a trip to Maine a few years ago, I had wanted to take the ferry to Nova Scotia but didn’t have time. On a recent trip to Maine, I made time to go to Nova Scotia despite having just had a wisdom tooth removed and being in pain and unable to eat solid food. A vacation without being able to eat solid food is hardly worthwhile to me as I love to eat indigenous delicacies but I did find that there is more to Nova Scotia than the food.

My travel companion and I took the Cat ferry from Bar Harbor. The Cat ferry isn’t cheap but it does save a lot of driving time. It is also a lot shorter than the ferry to Nova Scotia from Portland, Maine. It goes up to 55 mph and gets you to Nova Scotia in about three hours. Although there were cheaper motels around the area, we stayed in the Days Inn across the street so we could get up as late as possible to meet the ferry. The line was short and moved quickly through. Unfortunately for me, I had to back the car on to the ferry, a feat which was not easy for me especially with a line of cars watching but I was able to do it (well and straight, I might add). Once we were allowed upstairs, we explored the length of the boat. The seats in front were taken quickly as they have the best view, so we searched for a substitute. Since my companion gets seasick, we decided to stay near the rear of the boat. There were slot machines, which were not very exciting for two non-gamblers. There were also two movies playing in the back, where the seats were set up in movie theater rows. In Good Company and A Series of Unfortunate Events played, two movies I want to see, but we stood outside to watch Bar Harbor turn into a speck and then disappear. It was freezing outside, and since I had come from Florida, I wasn’t prepared for chilliness in June let alone the added chill of the seawind. There was also little for me to eat, and I asked a cute girl cashier at the café if the muffins were soft. She said yes and that was the first solid food I’d had in days. We checked out the gift shop but figured we might find better and cheaper stuff once we got where we were headed, which by the way, was nowhere in particular. Our plan was to get maps and tourist books and play it by ear. There is no lying, the boat ride is boring as hell and the movies do not make it any better or interesting. There isn’t much to see until you get close to land, but Yarmouth is not the most exciting city in Nova Scotia, which means New Scotland in Latin. However, after the long ride and the wait to get through customs, it is a joy to see the Yarmouth welcome sign.

The first thing I noticed upon driving around Yarmouth is that every house has a clothesline. This fact reminded me of my childhood when my grandmother and mother would hang clothes because we didn’t have a dryer. But because so many people here had clotheslines, I wondered why. Our first order of business was to get on 101 and travel north. Our plan was to circle around to Halifax and come back to Yarmouth, which seemed doable in a week. Our first stop on this very scenic lovely route was the town of Digby. Digby, famous for its scallops, is picturesque and has some gift shops and places to eat as well as whale watching. We wanted to do this but it was too windy so we went on our merry way after eating at a place I was grateful to find had breakfast food so I could get something soft. Our next stop was not far away at all—a quaint little place tucked away down a winding road—Bear River, the "Little Switzerland of Nova Scotia." The tide was not in when we arrived and we saw a café and some shops built on stilts. One of the shops was an art gallery, Flights of Fancy. My companion and I love art galleries, so we took a peak inside. The owner is artist Robert Buckland-Nicks, whose studio upstairs can be toured as well. Rob creates detailed paintings of birds on smooth stones. He is a very friendly fellow, and he told us about folk artist Maud Lewis and her husband. I had never heard of Maud Lewis but her work was quite appealing, very colorful and vibrant depictions of everyday scenes—like deer in the wild, oxen pulling carts, lighthouses or snowy harbor towns. Bear River is also home to other artists’ studios that you can visit. What a beautiful sunny day we had to visit Bear River and it would prove to be our favorite stop in Nova Scotia.

lupine in Annapolis Royal

Our next stop was the beautiful Annapolis Royal. We stayed at the Annapolis Royal Inn. Across the street is a grassy field dotted with trees and lavender and purple-colored lupine popping up and green hills in the distance. The inn itself was comfortable. My only complaint was no hair dryer. There weren’t many guests, most likely because this was mid-June. My companion and I sat outside in the Adirondack chairs and enjoyed the late-evening sun. However, I wasn’t thrilled to find a tick crawling on my jeans back in the room. Needless to say, I survived, and the next morning, we were off to Fort Anne National Historic Site of Canada. Fort Anne was built in the 1700s. The view here is absolutely gorgeous with such a lush, green color all around. There is a short tour inside the Officers’ Quarters with an explanation of the Fort Anne Heritage Tapestry and the history of the area, including stories of the Acadians and British. An interesting part was the dank "Black Hole" where prisoners were kept. Of note also is the old cemetery with graves from the 1700s. Annapolis Royal also boasts North America’s first tidal power plant, which can be toured. We drove past but didn’t tour it though as there were a lot of other stops on our trip.

Dina at Fort Anne

The drive through the Annapolis Valley has to be one of the most beautiful drives. There are some apple orchards that can be seen from the main road as well as the green rolling hills. We did get off to take a detour to Hall’s Harbor, which is down a pretty residential, boring street. But once there it does not disappoint. A small harbor town with a gift shop and lobster pound, the sights here are breathtaking and worth the trip. The gift shop is one of the better we visited as well. Still not able to eat much, I ordered a lobster roll anyway. I was lucky that it was not like the Maine lobster rolls, chunks of lobster with butter and mayonnaise, but it was a lobster salad almost like a tuna salad. This did prove better for my sore mouth as I wouldn’t have been able to chew chunks of lobster. My companion ordered some fried Digby scallops, which I tried. We were surprised that they were smaller than the scallops we’re used to eating home. There are also bathrooms here that the public can use. I had also read to ask locals about stone cottages that were interesting to see. I did ask the cashier in the shop and she told me to keep heading straight along the road as it winds up the mountain and I’d come to a dirt road to the right called Huntington. Take that straight down and make a right at the end. I did and there were three small cottages with multi-colored stones that are private residences. One woman was out raking. The cottages, while different-looking from the rest of the houses in Nova Scotia, are really not worth the secret hype.

Hall's Harbor

From there, we went back on the main road to Grand-Pré, to visit the historic site celebrating the Acadians and Evangeline, the heroine of Longfellow’s famous poem. The Acadians were French settlers who came to the area in the mid-17^th century. They got their name from "Arcadia," the word Verrazano called the area when he explored it in 1524. When that part of Nova Scotia came under British rule, the French stayed, but were asked to take an oath of allegiance to Britain. Many did not want to because they thought it would mean going against the French. In 1744 England and France were at war, so the British deported the Acadians, who then settled in other parts of Canada and the U.S. Their villages were burned so they wouldn’t return. In 1763 England and France made peace again and then some Acadian families returned. In 1847, Longfellow made the deportation known throughout the world when his poem Evangeline was published.

The grounds here are truly amazing, and it was fun to run through such a large green field. The museum has a gift shop and history of the Acadians as well as an outdoor church, Evangeline statue, ponds, and small area with a blacksmith shop that shows some Acadian daily life. In one day, we found ourselves in pristine countryside and then smack-dab in the city of Halifax (which is home to Sarah MacLachlan, a fact I hadn’t known before). The outskirts of the city reminded me of Jersey City, smaller city buildings with green trees poking out. There were differences, though, as Halifax is a much cleaner city and cars actually stop for pedestrians—even if you’re jaywalking. Quite different from being mowed down here in the U.S. (Hey, this really shocked me as I’ve lived in NYC and Orlando—not exactly pedestrian friendly cities.) We had trouble finding lodging here as all the hotels were booked. We were lucky to find the Holiday Inn in Dartmouth had a room. You must cross the Angus L. MacDonald Bridge to get to it, though, which is not far, but is toll so it’s handy to have some Canadian money on you.

I love harbor towns and Halifax was no exception. It was cute, quaint and reminded me somewhat of downtown NYC. It was fun getting our pictures taken near the lobster street art. And if you like ice cream, you have to try Cows at the end of the boardwalk. This ice cream tastes like ice cream used to taste in America before they took fat out of cream and fed cows hormones and chicken shit. Nearby is the Old Waterfront with historic buildings dating back to the 1700s. These buildings survived the Halifax disaster that occurred on December 6, 1917. Two ships, one carrying explosive material, collided, and in minutes, Halifax harbor was obliterated, creating the worst manmade disaster until the atom bomb was dropped on Japan. I also had some porridge for breakfast at Cabin Coffee (1554 Hollis St, 902-422-8130), a cute coffee shop with a mountain theme. The porridge was delish, so rich and creamy, again not like the oats you get in the grocery store. The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia was also fun to tour. We really went for the Maud Lewis exhibit, which has the exact house in which she and her husband lived. It is a tiny (9 x 10 ½ feet) dollhouse-like structure with one little room and a sleeping loft upstairs. Maud Lewis has interested me so much, I’d like to write something separately about her. Next we visited the Old Burying Ground where there are graves from the 1700s. The gravestones here are fascinating. The older ones are the most interesting. They were handmade out of slate from Massachusetts Bay. In the late 1700s, a cheaper local slate called ironstone was used. Across the street is St. Mary’s Basilica. The church does have a tour, but we were too late for it. To our surprise, the door was unlocked, reminding me of my childhood when American churches didn’t have to lock their doors. We also checked out the Book Room nearby, the oldest book store in Canada, which had a lot of books on the area. For dinner, since I really still couldn’t eat, we ate at a pub but there was nothing soft except a plate of hummus and tabouli. I also ordered seafood chowder thinking it’d be like the seafood chowder in America. Of course, the one time I want a chowder with nothing in it, I get a bowl of scallops, and large pieces of fish. There is a lot more to do in Halifax, but we had a tight schedule so we had to leave.

Our next stop as we began to wind our way back around was Peggy’s Cove, a town named for the only survivor of an 1800 schooner sinking. At first, it doesn’t seem like there is anywhere to go here, and when we arrived, the visitors’ center was closed. So we followed the street not knowing that we’d find a restaurant—the Sou’Wester, gift shop and lighthouse around the bend. It was gray here, the only gray day we spent in sunny Nova Scotia. It was befitting though, as the place is covered with large grayish rocks. You can walk along a rock path to the lighthouse and back. It’s hard to distinguish the path from the rocks they warn you not to walk on, saying that unfortunate travelers died trying to climb them. The landscape is one of the most photographed in Nova Scotia. The gift shop is OK and at that point, I was grateful for a bathroom. I was disappointed that I couldn’t try something neat from the restaurant’s menu like lobster, Solomon gundy, or finnan haddie but I could still barely open my mouth, so I got crabcakes—not that exciting considering I don’t live far from Maryland. As we continued on, we stopped at a memorial for those who died in Swiss Air Flight 111 crash off the coast of Nova Scotia in 1998. Again, it seemed appropriate that the day was as gray as the large, round memorial stones.

Dina in Peggys Cove

We continued on to Lunenberg where we would once again try to go whale watching. It was late though, so we found lodging at the Wheelhouse Motel. This motel was the cheapest at which we stayed but definitely worth the price. So the mattress was softer than most and there was no phone in the room nor A/C and heat and we could hear two women’s laughter reverberating through the brick wall, but for $45 American, it was a bargain. We had gotten a flier about whale watching, which said the times. We wanted to go at 11:30, so we got up fairly early the next morning. We were happy to find that it was a sunny, perfect day to go out, and they were going, only at 1:30. Now, Lunenberg has a fisheries museum, but we weren’t interested in that. And by this time, we had had enough of seafood restaurants, of which there are plenty, so we were at a loss for what to do to kill the time until 1:30. We decided to drive out of town for awhile and see what was there, maybe get something to eat. There is a lack of food along the roads that is not seafood, so I stopped at a Tim Horton’s to get an egg salad sandwich and Boston cream doughnut.

It was a good day for whale watching and we went out with about eight other people on a small boat. They do sell bottled drinks on the boat in case you forget to bring one on the three-hour tour, and there is also a washroom on board. You can get some nice photos of the city once you get out far enough. It takes a while to get out far enough to see any animals. The first we saw were porpoises, who were happy to put on a show for us. They jumped in and out of the water simultaneously and made for some good shots. There was one who showed off by jumping sideways. We also saw a minke whale who was not quite as adventurous. He came up and down a few times, but nothing as exciting as the porpoises. We were able to see puffins off of the big bird island. I was happy to hear that puffins mate for life and if their mate dies, they don’t mate any more. Ah, if humans were only like puffins the divorce rate could be lowered. There were some ledges nearby with seals popping their heads above water to check us out. In all, the boat ride was well worth it, as we saw quite a lot of animals.