Sunday, July 17, 2016

Halifax Vacation Part 2

On Monday in Halifax we went on a wine tour, visiting three vineyards in the Annapolis Valley.  The first that we went to was L'Acadie, and it was our favourite.


It's the only certified organic winery in Nova Scotia, and is organic in all stages of the wine making process.  Their sparkling wine has also won second place two years in a row, competing against sparkling wines and champagnes in the Champagne region of France.

Next up was Luckett Vineyards, a more conventional/commercial winery.


We were sad we didn't get to meet the famous Pete Luckett who owns the vineyard (and recently sold his small grocery store chain to Sobeys), because he sounds like quite the character, with an incredible amount of drive and ambition; I love people like that!  He came to Canada from England in 1979, and his story of entrepreneurship is amazing.

 

Our final stop was at Gaspereau Vineyards, where we had a little snack and enjoyed the beautiful day for a bit.


That evening when we got back into Halifax we were very hungry, and were craving fish and chips.  We went to Fries & Co., which we heard was the best.  We shared some eats, and took a good-sized doggy bag back to our room for later.


On Tuesday we had breakfast in our hotel. 


The awesome thing about our Hilton hotel was that it had a full kitchen, which came in handy with things like fish & chip leftovers, and it also included a full, hot breakfast each morning with no extra charge.  They also have 24 hour coffee, tea, etc. in the lobby, and a free dinner each evening, with just a couple offerings that changed daily; unfortunately we weren't ever in the hotel around dinner time to check that out.

We spent the day wandering around a lot in a few different areas, stopping for bevvies at different hot spots along the way.


The cannon that goes off at Citadel Hill every day at noon sure gave me quite the startle the first couple of days, haha!

We grabbed lunch at Turkish Delight, which was so fresh, so delicious, and incredibly satisfying.  We shared the baba ghanouj, cacik (cucumber yogurt dish), and the lamb beyti "sarma" kebap


We loved all three dishes and would order them again in a heartbeat. 

After an afternoon of more wandering, we stumbled upon a place serving up $2 tacos for taco Tuesday.  We parked ourselves on the patio and indulged in a couple, with the fish being our favourite.


We hit a couple more venues/patios before the day was done, and ventured down to the water in the evening to eat a beaver tail dessert, and listen to Lauren Hill singing at the Jazz Festival. 

Have you ever been to the east coast of Canada?  How was your weekend?  What did you do?

1 comment:

Lisa's Yarns said...

I have only visited the west coast of Canada. The furthest east I have been is Winnipeg! I would like to adventure east, though, especially to places like Quebec and Montreal. Halifax sounds really neat, too.

That's cool that you got to see Lauren Hill perform. I was so obsessed with her when I was a freshman in college!

My weekend was a mix of downtime and getting stuff done around the house. I had been gone the previous week so it was nice to have time to do things like laundry and cleaning. I also bought a car as mine broke down the week before so it's nice to have that out of the way!