Day 23 - 08/25/22 - Halifax, Nova Scotia

 Today's stop in Halifax was another nice stop, but there was not near enough time to take much in. We reviewed the options in our walking app, GPS My City, and there were two walks.  We settled on one that involved walking up to the Citadel fortress.  Along the way we visited St. Mary's Catholic Basilica.  It's a pretty simple church inside, but has magnificent stained glass windows.  Upon reaching the Citadel, we paid the admission fee ($10.75Cdn each for seniors), and watched a changing of the guard before entering the courtyard. 

 

We spotted a platoon of 'soldiers' carrying sticks so we followed them up in the wall where they drilled the procedures for firing the cannon.  Later at noon as we were walking down George Street, they lit off the cannon. We both jumped as did a nearby worker. 

 

Back at the fort we watched a bagpipe and drum presentation and toured the Army museum and the regimental museum.  It's an easy walk up there from the port and we highly recommend it.  The plan was then to go to the Maritime museum, but once we reached the waterfront, we decided to spend the remaining 4 hours on the waterfront on the boardwalk.  The boardwalk is a wide pedestrian friendly wooden walkway that meanders about 2 miles along the waterfront.

 

We first walked to near the west end and turned around.  We chatted with a couple locals and they recommended a couple places where we might find lobster rolls.  At one point there was a small shopping mall where purchased some books on Oak Island and Anne of Green Gables.  We continued our walk east and found lobster rolls at Salty's. Our table on the outside patio gave us an unobstructed view of the harbor.  We watched seagulls and loons, ferries, the duck amphibious craft, small boats and the shoreline of Dartmouth across the bay.  The lobster roll was served on a croissant and was delicious.  It was way better than the one we had in Sidney early in the cruise.

 

Continuing our walk east we toured the Acadia and the Stackhouse museum ships before continuing our stroll back to the ship.  Once onboard we noted that the Zaandam which was berthed behind us was departing before us even though it arrived after us.  I quickly made my way up to deck 9 aft and took pictures of its departure.  What was really interesting was that the Zaandam left its berth and passed on our starboard side and sailed around George's Island which is in the middle of the harbor and a key part of the port's defense system.  It made for some impressive photography.

 

Shortly after the Zaandam left, the Nieuw Statendam's mooring lines were released and the thrusters and azipods moved the ship away from the berth and we duplicated the Zaandam's route around George's Island and headed out to sea. It was very interesting that we departed within 15 minutes of the 4:30pm onboard time. Both ships are sailing the same route to Bar Harbor, Maine and Boston.   We chatted with Abby & Ric until dinner time came.  They are booked to sail with us to Australia in a month along with about at least 10 others on this cruise.

 

Following a Lido dinner, we watched Paul Stepien, flautist perform on the main stage.Then we went to Billboard Onboard where Gabe & Meaghan did a fabulous all request set.  It was so good we stayed and endured 45 minutes of loud music from the adjoining Rolling Stone Rock Room so we could watch and listen to another 45 minute All Request session with Gabe and Meaghan. It was very good.  Afterwards we returned to our stateroom and packed about 90% of our items as tomorrow is very full day with immigration & customs inspection in the morning before we tender into Bar Harbor, Maine.  We are doing an excursion late in the day to Acadia National Park and have a really good World Stage show to see (we've seen it multiple times and is worth seeing again) and specialty dinner reservations after the show.