Day 5

Started out bad. Heavy seas all night. The ship was rocking and shaking violently, making it really hard to sleep. When we finally arrived at Halifax around 7 am, we were informed that the port was closed due to weather. We stayed anchored till about 1 pm then docked by 2. We were told that our next destination (Sydney) was cancelled due to weather conditions so we did not have to return to the ship by 6 pm but 5am instead. We got into Halifax about 3 pm and started walking. The weather was sunny and balmy and the town is beautiful. First we walked along the port boardwalk, which is very pretty and has some interesting places to see, such as the Canadian equivalent of Ellis Island, through which most of the Canadian immigrants were processed at the beginning of the 20th century, a modern craft and design center, a farmer’s market, and various restaurants and souvenir shops (many closed for the season). We visited the historic citadel and the beautiful city gardens, one of very few Victorian gardens remaining in Canada, and the downtown shopping district. We took a little break in the public library, which is one of the most attractive and welcoming public libraries we’ve seen, and then went to a restaurant praised in local pamphlets. The place is called Little Fish Oyster Bar, and It was outstanding. The best meal on this trip so far. Then on the dark walk back to the ship we passed a distillery. It did not look open but when we pushed the button the door opened. It is a local distillery that distills and bottles rum on the premises. They make their rums out of molasses that they get from some place in New Brunswick. We sampled 4 of their rums, and were pleasantly surprised. As we were getting close to the cruise terminal, it started raining so we made it back just in time. We walked over 7 miles, not bad for one afternoon.