Pat & John's Nova Scotia Adventure--Excellent

Halifax Sessions

We arrived at Halifax International Airport 22 July. Having already cleared customs in Montreal and because we'd carried all our bags, we were able to proceed directly to a counter to secure the car Pat had reserved. It's an easy airport. Budget gave us a Ford Focus station wagon and, after circling it looking for dings that might ding us and sitting in the seats and noting all the buttons, dials, and such, we were on our merry way. The drive from the airport to Halifax was easy; the Budget clerk gave us a pre-printed set of directions that got us within a few blocks of our target and it wasn't hard to make the last few turns.

On Saturday the 24th, we took a day trip to the Windsor area. Pat and I wanted to see the something of the Bay of Fundy. We were able to see the immense flats left when the tide is nearing low (see later image), but we didn't have time to stay 8 more hours for the high-tide view. The drive was pretty interesting; there were many tiny towns (< 2000 population), lots of churches. Windsor, itself, looks like an interesting place to spend a day or two. It was pretty nifty to look into river courses and see essentially a trickle at the bottom of a much larger, muddy trough. If one's interested in Acadian history, this area looks like a good place to visit.

As with most places, Halifax surely has more sights to see than we shall manage to see. So far, we've managed to walk the downtown area, especially along Spring Garden from South Park to the waterfront. In fact, we'd made that walk twice by mid-afternoon on the 23rd. On the second one, Pat spotted this group of children preparing for an excursion on a sailing ship. Spring Garden teams with the life that comes from a mixture of tourism, college students, and a downtown business section (with a splash of port thrown in): Coffee bars (see the itinerary); restaurants of many stripes; pubs; clothing stores; general shops (including a sports spot about two doors from a running shop); street vendors and musicians; and, of course, lots of colorful characters.

There was plenty else to see and do. Pat was disappointed when she didn't get to go on the Harbor Hopper, an amphibious vehicle that offers trips that appear to be a combination of sight-seeing tour and water amusement ride. She said her father would have taken her.

• 22 July Dinner: On a recommendation from the innkeeper, we went to Il Mercato on Spring Garden. We chose to sit in a odd corner seat which afforded us a good view of the passersby on the avenue and allowed us to sit side-by-side. We also chose to dine almost exclusively on appetizers, letting the various Italian dishes go. Pat had a soup (Pasta e fagioli) she likened to pouridge; it was quite thick. I had a seafood soup that was passable. We also shared a round of smoked salmon, and I had some spicy shrimp (cream and brandy sauce); both were O.K., neither really good, let alone spectacular. For a main course, I chose a Focaccia sandwich with tuna and accoutrements; the tuna was dry and had the consistency of canned white tuna. Maybe we hit them on an off day. I had wines by the glass; the Italian pinot grigio (Bolla) was O.K., but a New Zealand sauvignon blanc (Twin Islands) was harsh and oaky. Total ticket: ~$90 Canadian.
• 23 July Lunch: McKelvie's (Lower Water Street: http://www.mckelvies.com/, but the site didn't respond as of 24 July 04) was right good. Pat had the day's soup, a butternut squash bisque which included chunks of green apple; she liked it a lot (fearing chickie stock, I passed). I had another seafood soup (mixture of just about everything) and, though the serving was tiny, it was quite good. I also had lobster salad sandwich (local bread in place of the traditional hotdog bun, so it wasn't a "roll") and pat had a salad. We had nice service from Ryan on the patio with a view through a garden-gate entry of a noisy street. This place is worth a return visit, though I'm not sure we'll get there. Total ticket: ~$25 Canadian.
• 23 July Dinner: Fiasco was our first very good meal. Chef Michael's place seats ~50 at cloth-covered tables, just a few meters south of Spring Garden on Brenton, and his food runs toward sauces rich with sherry and cream. I had a very instense mushroom-Marsala dish as an app while Pat had a soup of three mushrooms with chunks of squash in a pheasant stock seasoned with a curry-cardaway reduction. For second courses, we had more seafood; Pat had the dish of the night--wonderfully succulent scallops over greens with a Madiera sauce that included sundried tomoto chunks and leeks--and I had some very nicely spiced thin-and-tender strips of calamari with the least powerful (quite good) sauce of the night; they were integrated with a warm spinich salad from which the waitron had the bacon omitted. As an entree, Pat had a salad of romaine with a cream dressing she really liked; I had a strip of halibut over a cake of something or other with another cream-based sauce that included sherry, peppercorns, and tomato. Yummy. Wines by the glass were O.K.; again, the pinot grigio was better than the sauvignon blanc. Total ticket: ~$120 Canadian.
• 24 July Dinner: The previous evening, Pat spotted veggie burgers that intrigued her, so went to Diamio, a gelatto place across from Fiasco for a quick meal. Pat and I put away hazelnut-with-mango-chutney and mushroom-with-cilantro-sauce veggie burgers, respectively. The bread was actually pretty good. As the waitron noted, the burgers "are more crumbly than the usual veggie burger." Pat got more gelatto for desert. She was happy. Total ticket: ~$20 Canadian.
• Places we wanted to try but didn't:
  • Five Fishermen
  • Little Fish Restaurant
  • MacAskill's

We stayed in The Garden Inn on South Park. Though the acommodations were more similar to a hotel's than to a pleasant B&B, it was quite convenient. The room we had was about 12'x16' with a tiny bath attached and some space lost to a closet on one wall and a cut-out on another. Breakfast was a serve-yourself affair consisting of cold cereal and assorted breads (some of which were fresh daily); there was, of course, coffee and juice (dispense it yourself from a machine into juice glasses). Out the rear window we had a view of the parking lot, a row of back stoops that all looked alike, and a neighboring cemetary--the denizens of which rested quietly during our stay (Nova Scotia seems to have many cemetaries).

For the most part, we have seen the usual city birds, the pigeons (rock dove), sparrows, crows, ducks, and (because Halifax is a port city) seagulls. There's really been nothing to bring out the binoculars during these days

However, on one stop during our drive on the 24th, we saw several bald eagles, including at least one juvenile. They were at a distance, one the ground near the waters' edge where the huge tidal flows expose immense tidal flats (part of the Bay of Fundy phenomenon). Two birders from the Netherlands pointed them out to us. You can see one of these folks in the background of the image from that side trip.

On the way back from that trip we saw a large, raptor arise from a lake by the road; it was quite dark colored and had enough rust on the tail to make me think it was a red-tail, but it was large enough to make me doubt that. At highway speeds, one must be quick and confident in identifying birds. I'm neither.

Runs (at my current slow pace, which is 9+ mpm)