Canada Day 82 Lunenberg and Peggy’s Cove Thursday 9th July 2015
First stop of the many “comfort stops” planned into our tour – no more than an hour without a stop. This was new for us. The stop was a) bathroom (toilet stop) b) coffee – Tim Hortons and c) Photo Op. Our first Tim Hortons since arriving in Canada and coffee not too bad.
First visit of the Maritimes tour was Lunenburg established in 1753 and now a Unesco registered area. Like our afternoon visit to Peggy’s Cove – over photographed yet still captivating.
The visit began at the Lunenberg Academy. The first experience with our “Ears” (listening devices). and an enthusiastic guide; Shelagh.
Shelagh was a descendent of one of the original Lunenberg families.
The Academy was a large and beautiful dominating building painted in the traditional black and white.
The tour wove through the historic town including the beautiful church of St Johns.
A church that had burnt down and been rebuilt through a huge community effort.
Through the historic streets of the town:
We ended the formal tour at the Bluenose schooner.
The schooner was built in Lunenburg in 1921 for fishing on the Grand Banks, it was also raced.
As a bonus for us on this beautiful day the Bluenose was moored at the village.
Once the tour ended we had free time and choices for lunch.
We headed to the end of the village and found our way into a boat shed where a program to teach boat building skills was underway.
On the wall were prints that captured my eye. Local sea scenes in water colour painted over sea maps.
We decided we wanted to buying a selection. After calling out to the guys working on the boat (and finding the younger ones appeared to speak maybe one of the Spanish languages, we found the person selling the prints (and it turned out the artist) was working on the boat next door.
Once we found him he offered to bring the pictures to wherever we were having lunch. Sure enough as we sat with our fish and chips on a beautiful sunny day overlooking the harbour at Lunenburg he arrived with a selection of pictures.
After lunch we travelled to Peggy’s Cove, a picturesque and well photographed fishing village with lighthouse. Also apparently one of the most photographed lighthouses in the world, despite Chris getting a photo sans people. A mammoth effort to achieve (see Header image above).
The walk from the lighthouse to the town was filled with little shops including local Nova Scotian Pewter which I was prepared to dislike – but could not. It was lovely and many gifts were purchased.
While stopping along the way to get the ultimate photograph we came across a group of men pulling up a boat. As it scraped noisily over the ramp they suddenly flipped it on its side to examine it. All that could be seen was the boat and three pairs of hands holding it up:
Back in Halifax we had a fascinating and rapid introduction to Nova Scotia and its history from Jay White.
At the end of Jay’s presentation Chris asked a question. Jay’s humorous response was “Whoa what part of the States are you from?” “Welcome Cousin!”
