Maritime Vacation, Part 1

Disclaimer: I know I'm completely green as a travel writer, but I'd like to try.  I beg your grace.

So, vacation...

First of all, where did I go?  Here:

And, more specifically, here:

Flew into Halifax - airport was practically deserted.  (Less happily, had to change planes at LaGuardia, where they haven't managed to reconcile contemporary security procedures and connection times with the fact that their terminals are spread between six different buildings connected only by shuttle.  Clearly, I'd blocked those memories, or I would have booked a different flight.)  Spent a few days in the city - checked out the Citadel fort, the waterfront, and the Maritime Museum, which was quite educational.  All interspersed with art galleries and bookstores and general urban wandering.

 Art dolphins all over Halifax.

Highlight: Ocean!  Now that I've been in the middle of the continent for a while, it's nice whenever I get to see real, open ocean.  Also, boats are pretty.

Lowlight: Haligonian coffee.  In three days I consumed the ten worst cups of coffee of my life.  This includes cappuccini from two different Starbucks, and something from Tim Horton's that I swear was actually tea.  I was afraid that maybe this was a region-wide affliction, but things did improve from there.  

Perhaps actual tea would have worked out better.

Insight: I knew that the Boston Common Christmas tree was an annual gift from Nova Scotia, for reasons that had something to do with the 1917 Halifax Harbor explosion, but I didn't know the great extent of the emergency relief provided by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  Even if Parks Canada did erroneously refer to it as the "State of Massachusetts" throughout the exhibit - I won't tell Boston if you don't. 

After morning prayers at 250-year-old Anglican Church (the Rector gave an oddly rousing sermon about dinner parties) and brunch (terrible coffee, but decent soccer - Serbia/Ghana) I got a car and headed toward Cape Breton Island. 

Since I was travelling around quite a bit anyway, I mixed it up with my lodgings, going for a variety of accommodation types and a moderate range of price points.  There were a few Bed and Breakfast legs, so most mornings I spent eating eggs with retirees from the United Kingdom. 

Insight: Brits like limp bacon.

Cape Breton is a land littered with scenic drives and fiddle music.  The plan was to trace the Cabot Trail, which loops up around the national park near the north end of the island, then continue farther down the northwestern coast back to the mainland.  First stop: Baddeck, long-time home to Alexander Graham Bell.  I hadn't realized how long he lived there - almost the last 40 years of his life.  The estate, Beinn Bhreagh, isn't open, but a museum documents Bell's life and work there very well.
 

Yes, Alec.  Speed.

Highlight:  The museum has a massive collection of Beinn Bhreagh-era photographs, and it's hard to miss the signs that Bell was a jolly family type.  Whether he was puttering about the garden or trying to invent the airplane, he always seemed to have a grandchild or three in tow.  I always love evidence that a great mind was also well-balanced and personally admirable.

Heading up the trail, I noticed just how quiet it was up there.  I knew that June wouldn't be high-season proper, but it might as well have been mid-February, judging by the crowds.  I often drove for miles and miles without seeing another car, and rarely saw another customer in any shop or artist's studio where I stopped to browse.  I gather that grade schools don't generally let out until the end of June up there?  (Canadians are welcome to provide insight, because the answers I got while I was there didn't make much sense.)

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't great - though it wasn't terrible - for most of my time on Cape Breton.  It was pleasant enough to drive around, and the scenery was still nice to look at, but the light wasn't ideal for amateur landscape photography.  I did get a few hours of clear skies before a storm with high winds whipped up and shut down all water-based transit for a day.  I sat out the storm learning about Acadian hooked rugs (have you ever seen a portrait of LBJ in a carpet?  I have, now.) and the history of Celtic music in North America.  And, by extension, I suppose, about the cultural dichotomy of the region.  (Eating Scottish oat cakes in a Tim's where everyone was speaking French helped with that, too.)

To be continued...