Lunch and a Good Walk on the Hills of Halifax

 We had decided against taking a tour in Halifax, mainly because we'd already done a number of the more interesting options. Instead, we wanted to get a good seafood lunch and then walk around to see places we, or at least I, had not visited before. Larry came to Halifax a number of times while with Inspection Division at TD Bank.

We asked our friend Kathy to join us, and we took the tender in to the pier. The tender? In Halifax? Yes, we had to tender. There were two other ships, larger than us, at Piers 21 and 22, so li'l ol' Serenity with our 600 or so guests had to anchor off the pier. No more than a 10 minute ride, and we left after all of the excursions had gone.

Pier 21 also houses the Canadian Immigration Museum and Archive. The records are made public 75 years after the original event so anyone can use them to research family history. My father arrived at Pier 21 in May of 1952, so in a couple of years I'll be able to do the same thing. I think that the records of people landing in other cities are also available through the archive here and online.

There are some sculptures outside of the Pier Buildings commemorating women volunteers as well as one called 'The Immigrant'.

This one is 'The Immigrant'. Very
poignant.

We had made a reservation for lunch, even though we would be arriving at the restaurant, The Bicycle Thief, right when it opened. It was a good thing we had, because it didn't take more than a half hour before there was barely a seat left anywhere, inside or outside!

Just after we sat down, but it didn't stay that
way for long!

Our plate of fresh oysters on the half shell. They
were amazing and gone in about 15 minutes!

I had the Mussels sauteed in white wine and tomato
sauce. I'm going to make them like this at home!

Kathy had a lobster roll. Considering she's from
Boston, this was the first one she had this year,
and she really enjoyed it.

Larry had the Clam and Corn Chowder for
his 'main'.

Here we are. We had a great server who
kindly took a photo for us. See how busy
the restaurant is now?

After all of that, we needed to walk off lunch before we had dinner on the ship. Larry had been to the Halifax Citadel, but neither Kathy nor I had, so we walked up....and up....and up some more, to reach the top of the hill. Then we purchased the tickets to get us into the garrison, and had to climb a few more steps. But that got us to the top of Halifax. The only things higher were the downtown office buildings.

And this isn't even all the way to the top!

Kathy took this one of us

One last photo of Serenity at anchor

As we walked back along the waterfront,
which is quite large and lively, we
saw this view of the lighthouse on George Island

We headed back to the ship and prepared for the sailaway and dinner. It was still a little cool and breezy, but the weather forecast seemed to be improving. We were hoping for a nice sea day to Boston, but - spoiler alert - it started out fogged in and rainy. Things did improve in the afternoon, but it still wasn't warm enough to sit out on our balcony.

Fast forward to Saturday, September 27. We're in Boston and have spent the day on board. I finally got to put my bathing suit on and get into the pool this morning. We went to Beefbar for lunch, and then I started working on the blog. At least it's up to date!

We will be leaving for New York at 6:30 tomorrow morning, so we effectively have a final sea day on this voyage. We're arriving in NYC on Monday morning - we're expecting to pass the Statue of Liberty around 7:30...if she's still there😟. 

We'll update you on all of that in the final post, which most likely won't be published until we get home.