Snowbird Practice : November 2023

Our plan for the day was to see the Maritime Museum, walk to waterfront, explore the Citadel, see the Public Gardens, see an old burial ground, wander around some neighborhoods, and find a Donair for lunch which is supposedly the official food of Halifax.

As we were pulling into Halifax we saw what looked like a garbage barge coming to our ship.

We got off the ship and walked through the terminal where locals were handing out maps and giving people recommendations. We had a very nice gentleman outline a self guided walk through the town taking us to all the places that we were wanting to see. Our first stop was the Maritime museum, I had just finished the book "Barometer Rising" about the great explosion here in 1917. Great book and glad I read it before seeing the museum.

Our walk along the waterfront before heading to the museum.

We enjoyed the Maritime Museum, especially reading about the Great Explosion and seeing the models of early passenger ships.

Too bad this ship was closed for viewing.

We walked up to the citadel and noticed lots of people standing around the ticket booth, the line not moving. We find out that they close the ticket booth just before noon, they have the cannons go off at noon along with a sentry change at the entrance. So we actually timed our arrival great! We stand with the others and wait for the firing of cannons and sentry change.

We wander around, explore and listen to a few audio/visuals. The citadel had gone through 4 fortifications since the British army founded the city in 1749, what we saw today was the completion in 1856.

We enjoyed a bag pipe performance while we there.

We headed off looking for lunch searching for Donair, said to be the official food of Halifax. It was a Sunday and some of the places I researched for getting it were closed so we popped into a boutique and asked a young woman working there where we could find some donair. We headed to where she suggested and again found a couple closures. We settled on a place that had pizza and donair, should have had the pizza!

We discover Donair here is not the Donair we had in France, I was expecting a gyro with french fries. Donair here is simply gyro meat in a pita with a thick white sweet sauce, some onion and tomatoes. One bite and I said the sauce tastes like ice cream, Dave asked the man and the counter what the sauce is.... it is sweetened condensed milk which he said is the traditional sauce. We notice others come in and get it and just chow it down like it is great! It was a bit yuck to us, but we ate it!

While we were looking for our lunch a young man approached us and asked if we would hold his dog while he went in to pick up his pizza. Guess we looked trustworthy!

We then went to the Public Gardens. It was a fairly small garden but very pretty. The highlight was the brass band playing in the gazebo, great music.