Nova Scotia for beginners

Finally it came, our first trip off The Rock, and my first flight since November! We had decided to visit Nova Scotia, one of the four Atlantic provinces (with Newfoundland & Labrador, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island - also known as P.E.I - remember L.M.Montgomery?).

It's an hour and a half flight from St.John's, pretty much like CPH-BXL, one of my previous frequent routes, and you can choose between Air Canada (think: SAS) or WestJet (think: Norwegian). And just like back home, the bigger name doesn't always equal better service or reasonable quality-price ratio - we were amazed to find out that luggage for free is a thing of the past also with Air Canada. Note to self: buy more carry-on size luggage and spare the $25.

Newfoundland from above

We flew to and stayed in Halifax, which is the biggest city in Nova Scotia and although not a huge city, very much more so than our small and cosy St.John's. A shopping street with more than 5 stores? Check. A cinema in the city? Check. A beautiful library? Check!! The Halifax Central Library was a very interesting piece of design right at the heart of the city. Opened in December 2014, it looked like a piece of another world, but it fit very well on its space. Interesting that, unlike in Copenhagen, the library was not placed at the waterfront, but on the main street of the city.

A daylight look of the new Central Library on Spring Garden Road

I liked the way the sunset reflected from the windows - a bit like with the Black Diamond in Copenhagen

We had received an excellent 'best of'-list from the lovely HR & JC, former long-term dwellers of Halifax, and we set about following the list and liking most of what we saw!

Colourful houses and doors in downtown Halifax

This wonderful café came with the recommendation: "trust me, don't try to eat their chocolate croissant alone!"

The above was also true for their cookies, none of which were finished that day - or the next! The fireplace was a welcome source of warmth on a chilly day.

Another recommendation (but from a different source) had been Cow's ice cream, which is supposed to be the best in the world according to a vote by travellers all across the globe. Unfortunately for us, there was more ice outside than inside the shop, so we will have to leave the tasting to another time in the future.

Just by chance, we saw a poster for a world-class sports event taking place in Halifax just during our visit: the World Men's Curling Cup 2015! We checked out the programme and realized to our amazement that Finland was playing Italy that same night. What else was there to be done but buy tickets and go support our blue-white guys towards victory against Italy? (and for those interested: Sweden won the cup against Norway, Canada was third and Finland - at that time world nr. 14 became sensationally fourth!)

Finland's skip Aku Kauste securing victory over Italy

Lucky for me, I had already had the chance to watch one or two games of curling in Newfoundland and understood some of the basic rules, but I'm still to learn more of the vocabulary before I can call myself fluent in the language of curling. As a sidenote I can tell you that the first ever olympic medal to Newfoundland is from curling, where Canada beat Finland in the 2006 final of the winter olympics. So curling is big here!

Apart from sports, we spent a lot of time just walking around the city, as most shops were closed due to Easter. Halifax has got its fair share of snow this year (much more than St. John's!) and it was easy to see that the winter had not been friendly towards the locals.

How to find a water pump in the snow?

The Carrot Community Grocer in Halifax

On our last day, we rented a car and drove out of the city heading southwards to the South Shore, which is the beautiful coastline showing pictoresque Nova Scotian fishing villages, lighthouses, ships and coastlines. We were not in luck, as it was pouring down with rain much us the day - hence very few pictures. Some of the sights included the tiny fishing village of Peggy's Cove, with a well-known scenery of rocks and a beautiful lighthouse - packed with tourists in the summer but with us and two other people this time of the year. This is what it looks like when it's pretty!

We drove through Mahone Bay and ended up in Lunenburg, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site and would you believe it, also all of these things: National Historic District, Communities in Bloom's Most Beautiful Small Town and winner of Prettiest Painted Places in Canada, Port City of the Year and Society of American Travel Writers' Award recipient. But when it's foggy and grey, much of these awards are irrelevant and what you want is a good coffee and a nice piece of cake. We did find that! What caught my eye more than anything in Lunenburg, were the wonderful decorations in the electricity poles!

The three churches of Mahone Bay in the fog - one Anglican, one Lutheran and one United.

This was just a very quick taste of Nova Scotia for us and I have a feeling there's much more to it in the summer. I had hoped for a bit more spring in the air for early April, but I have now learned my lession and will do like the locals do next year: head for the Caribbean when April hits and the snowbanks are still towering high.

Most photos are my own, but there are also a few here that I nicked off my dad, Mr S! Thank you!