Canada 2024

8:00 a.m. Good morning from Bar Harbor, Maine. The weather has turned from windy with horizontal rain towards spectacular.  The sky is blue with no wind at all. It's still cool (50°F) but very pleasant with the sun.   Bar Harbor is located on Mount Desert Island, which is also the home of Acadia National Park.  Here you can see some of the most stunning natural scenery in America.  Rocky coastlines dotted with tall deciduous trees. It's really stunning.  I woke up early this morning and saw the sun rise on our way into Bar Harbor.  Here are a few photos: This morning we have to file through a U. S. Immigration onboard checkpoint where they will match our faces to our passports.  I hope that all of this rich and free cruise ship food hasn't altered my visage so much that I won't match up to my passport photo.   After we complete the immigration check we'll be free to go ashore to...

When we arrived in Halifax the temperature was in the low 40s, windy and raining.  Not exactly great weather for touring the city on foot.  As usual we had breakfast en suite, and I finally took a photo before we tore into everything: The rain let up at around noon so we dressed warmly and went for a walk.  Halifax is a really charming, pretty city with lots going on.  There is a lot of construction happening, including a big new hotel and residential complex near the waterfront.  Here are a few photos from our walk: Spring flowers: We ran across this lifesaving drill in progress (they're using a dummy): Have a look at this very cute Havanese named Cooper who we met along the way: Below is a statue of Samuel Cunard , native of Halifax and founder of the Cunard Line. He established the first scheduled steamship connection between...

1:00 p. m.  Hi everyone , Well, I told you at the outset of this blog experience that this wasn't going to be quite as exciting as our Italy trip. Today is a good example of that.  We landed in Sydney at about 9:00 a.m. It's a pretty small town that used to have a steel mill and coal mines to provide fuel for the steel mills. Due to a very tough market for steel, the mills closed in the early 2000s and there's never been a good replacement to fuel the local economy. So the downtown shows its age a bit, and there isn't a great deal to do here for those arriving by ship.  We did meet some very friendly and helpful local people, which was fun. Here are a few photos: St. George Anglican Church (1791). Former Bank of Montreal branch, now a museum. Giant mural of a hockey player. Big Fiddle, said to be the largest in the world. Whale mural. Last night's dinner was the Orange Night, where everyone is asked to wear...