Day 1 of two beautiful days in Halifax...

October 1, 2024

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Halifax is a beautiful  city with lots of murals both small...

...and large.

We opted for a city tour for about 4 hours. We had possibly, nay, PROBABLY, the most knowledgeable and verbose city guide we have encountered! Luckily, what he had to tell us---about Halifax history, the Titanic, the explosion, the sights in the city---was very interesting. And way too much to convey here!

Possibly the most interesting part of the day was visiting the Fairview Lawn Cemetery where many of the victims of the Titanic were buried. These photos pretty much tell the story.

The victims who were identified at the time of the sinking have their names on top of the grave markers.

Those who were identified later (some as late as 2007, I believe) have their names engraved on the front of the markers.

The taller marker is what was originally placed at the grave of the young unidentified child from the Titanic sinking. Some time after the sinking it was thought the child was identified by clothing and other items. But in 2007 he was definitively identified using DNA. The family elected to have the original marker remain because they had visited the grave marker years before and been comforted, thinking it might be their child (or grandchild or great grandchild). They wanted other families to have that same comfort. Halifax later put the identifying marker at the foot of the original.

Later we visited the Halifax botannic garden. A lovely garden, in my opinion not as nice as our Tucson Botanic Gardens, but lovely nonetheless!

Couldn't resist this beautiful backlit artichoke!

Magnificent main gate.

Halifax's one desert garden. It is uprooted every winter and replanted in the spring!

One more stop at the citadel in Halifax. By this time I was exhausted! But we did get to see the changing of the guard (including some women!) and hear the noon cannon go off. 

One of the more interesting stories our guide told us was about the explosion in Halifax harbor in 1917. Two ships basically played chicken, and both the ships and Halifax lost. Unfortunately for Halifax and both ships, one was carrying munitions (three times the allowable load). The resulting fire (first, which allowed several seamen to escape the ship) followed by the largest explosion ever (until the atom bomb). It leveled most of Halifax, winter was coming, most of the houses that weren't obliterated had no doors or windows and it was thought that Halifax was done for. Except for the people of Boston who sent people, supplies, equipment, food, medicines, virtually everything needed for Halifax to survive the winter and rebuild. Halifax, forever grateful, has, every year since, sent a Christmas tree to Boston to say thank you and let Bostonians know Halifax would never forget the outpouring of help.

And then, back to the ship, an afternoon martini, and this, delivered to our room, a very nice port. We only asked for two glasses of port but got the whole bottle!