We have an excursion planned for today. Joining us will be the two Traveling Sues and Joni and her husband. All of us are Cruise Critic members with Joni actually making the arrangements for all of us. After breakfast, we make our way forward for disembarkation at 8am. Something happens and we're delayed for about 15 minutes. We exit the gangway and meet Alphonse, holding a sign that says "Joni". That must be us. Within a few minutes all of us are here and Alphonse directs us to his van. As we leave the pier, his first comments are of the Halifax explosion of 1917. We were familiar with this catastrophe through Barbara's presentation yesterday.  

The Halifax Explosion occurred when a Belgian relief vessel and a French munitions carrier collided in Halifax Harbor during World War I. Crowds gathered around to watch the fire from the initial collision. The munitions ship drifted towards the pier and after twenty minutes blew sky high. More fires started and spread, and a tsunami wave was created. Thousands were killed and injured and much of Halifax was destroyed. To add to the disaster, a snowstorm started the next day, and lasted for nearly a week. The blast leveled much of the city and blew out windows 60 miles away. There's a lot more to the story and it's very interesting.

We drive through the city looking at different homes and neighborhoods as he talks about the different districts and zoning laws. Most of the areas we saw are protected as historical buildings. Next we go up on the hill to the Citadel. It's a large fort with all kinds of activities here. You can shoot real antique rifles, dress up in an authentic Scottish kilt and watch cannons fired. The whole tour here takes about five hours which we don't have but I take a few pictures before we leave. Next stop is the Fairview Lawn Cemetery where many of those that perished during the Titanic disaster are buried. He tells us many tales in the 30 minutes we're there but a three hour tour is available too if there was more time, he adds.  

• J. Dawson - Do you remember Jack Dawson, the young star of the movie Titanic played by Leonardo Di Caprio? We found his grave marker or so we thought. It's marked "J. Dawson" but the Jack Dawson character was made up for the movie and J.Dawson was a trimmer who fed coal to the engines of the ill-fated ship.
• It's true that the band kept playing even as the ship was sinking and all members perished.
• White Star owner Joseph Ismay was portrayed as having dressed as a woman in order to make a cowardly escape to safety aboard a lifeboat. He erected a tombstone for the officer that knowingly allowed him to board a lifeboat meant solely for women and children. 

Now we head out of town, stopping at a maple syrup farm. We learn the means to harvesting maple syrup and, of course, there's a small store where one can purchase maple syrup items if one so desires. Mom desires and gets some maple syrup, maple syrup butter and maple syrup sugar, all made from, you guessed it, maple syrup. Now we cruise through the countryside to see more homes and the shoreline of the area. Now we're all thinking that our guide moonlights as a real estate salesman. He sure likes to look at houses. We finally reach Peggy's Cove, a colorful area containing a small lobster fishing village and a lighthouse. We take a few more pictures here and listen to a bagpiper out on the rocks by the lighthouse.

Now it's time for lunch and our guide suggests Shaw's Landing. He calls ahead and they set a table aside for us. Karen has a lobster sandwich, fish and chips and a cup of fish chowder. I just have the chowder. I knew she couldn't eat all that and we end up sharing it all including two drinks. The others order their own food. The food is good but it takes quite a while to get it. We don't finish until around 2pm so it doesn't look like we'll have time to stop at a glass factory as promised. I'm sure there's a store there too. Our driver is pissed at the restaurant since they knew we were coming on a tight schedule and should have served us more quickly.

We make our way back to Halifax, arriving at the pier at 3pm. Our cost is $50 per person for the tour and we give him a $10 tip. Alphonse, from Halifax Tour Guys, was a nice guy with a lot of information. There's are a bunch of shops set up at Pier 21 where the Rotterdam is docked so Karen carefully exams their wares prior to boarding. She finds something, of course. Look at that, 10 minutes to spare.

Returning to our room, I shower and it's time for dinner. We meet two nice ladies from Vancouver Island. I have chicken and Karen has fish. We go down to the theater to see the singers and dancers but our seats are lousy. We sit a while and then bail. Mom wants to watch the Republican Convention on the television. I work on the blog to send tomorrow. I only have 40 minutes of Internet time left so all if it can't go out. Tomorrow is a sea day on our way to Boston and Karen is already planning her packing routine.