I wrote this newsletter when I was staying in and touring around Sydney, Nova Scotia, in early June, 2024. I will be sharing pictures and stories from my travels in June, July & August, as I get around to writing them and sorting through the thousands of pictures I took.
I took my dogs camping. Long story shorter, it was too damned cold. So we had to leave the campsite. I am going on such little sleep.
This morning, after 3 days of no sleep due to cold, I ejected my dogs and me out of the campsite. Packed us up and got us out of Dodge.
The camp ground is on part of the Cabot Trail. This is apparently a really famous trail that people love to come see. I’d never heard of it 😅 . Typical American!
[Jasper and me on the Cabot Trail. Turbo is behind me.]
So I did drive and see some of it. But I wasn’t awake enough to drive all of it. (I’m told it takes an hour and a half.) and ALSO, it was all foggy today. There wasn’t much to see for miles and miles of it. Some of it was solid white with fog. I pulled over and took some photos when I could.
We went to the Alexander Graham Bell Museum. It was pretty neat! I couldn’t take the dogs in. It was cool outside. But I parked them under a tree and went thru the museum rather quickly. I really wanted to see it. And I knew I would regret it if I didn’t go.
It was chock full of so much information.
[Alexander Graham Bell and his wife, Mabel Bell.]
My dad would have LOVED that museum. I really want to know if he went when he was married to my mum. I think I know he went to Nova Scotia with her. Either before I was born or when I was little (4?) (I have a memory of eating oatmeal with raisins in it on my great-grandmother’s boat. I just don’t know if it was in Nova Scotia, or if my great-grandmother was visiting us in New Jersey where we lived at the time.
After the museum, I drove to a place called “Governor’s Pub” in downtown Sydney, Nova Scotia. Right across the street is a Holiday Inn. So I pulled in there and quickly got a room for my dogs and me for 3 nights.
The hotel is right on the water !! It’s so beautiful !!
[Walking on the boardwalk towards “The World’s Largest Fiddle.”]
I love Nova Scotia and all the views of oceans and lakes. I love water. So much. I wish I could live on the water. On a boat or a beach.
Then I parked them in the shade by the water. (It’s cool and windy there.)
I went to the fiddle concert at Governor’s Pub. It was so good! I made some new friends. My new friends are two men who have fun stories of how they started playing fiddle.
One started because his wife’s family had a fiddle so he thought, “maybe I should try that!” And another man, whose dad sounded like a Luthier, but the man didn’t know what that was. He said his dad made 44 violins. And his friend said that (the Luthier’s son) had also built a violin. (Or 4?) He had also made his gorgeous, wooden violin case! Maybe I should have asked if I could take a photograph of it. It really was beautiful. It looked like it held a violin inside, rather than like my case, which is a torn & tattered rectangular case that used to have a velvet on the outside, but now it’s mostly worn off, and exposing black plastic.
I got a local Cape Breton cider. (Like a beer, but made from apples.) it was so good! And I got a lb of mussels in a white wine sauce - my favorite! Every time I eat mussels, I think of my dad’s mom. She loved them.
The mussels and apple cider were so good.
And the music was fantastic. So much fun! Cape Breton had its own kind of fiddle music and I get to hang out with more fiddle players on Sunday (tomorrow!) and learn and play with them!!
I left a few times to check on my dogs. I also moved them to next to the restaurant. It saved me a lot of walking and stairs. My knees and feet are hurting like crazy 😆
After, that, I walked on the boardwalk or Pier (not sure what they call it here) and saw that my hotel is just down the boardwalk from the world’s largest fiddle!
I saw another “world’s largest fiddle” in Branson, Missouri last year. Do you remember that? I played a bunch of songs by it in the parking lot around 1 or 2 am.
Did I share any? I can’t remember. I get overwhelmed by all the videos I have made 😆
Now I know why movie studios use that black and white cracker thing “Movie title, Take 1” etc. It helps to pick out the clips later!
The fiddle in Branson was such a gimmick. Made of plexiglass and had neon lights instead of strings. It went through a glass ceiling. It was hard to see the whole thing too. There wasn’t any way to take in the whole thing from any 1 location. Because it was half inside and half outside.
The World’s Largest Fiddle, here in Sydney, Nova Scotia, looks so much more genuine. It’s got the chin rest, and tuning pegs and fine tuners. It also has a bow with separate strands (like the horsehair that violin bows generally have).
And they have it set to play classic Cape Breton style fiddle tunes!! I’d just heard one of the songs in the pub less than an hour ago!
The weather in Sydney was perfect for walking.
The board walk is right behind my hotel and goes right to the violin.
There are so many things to sniff and dogs and people to meet on the boardwalk in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia!
I finally took stuff up to the room in the hotel.
Second trip, and I wondered if my room faced the water.
It does!! I have a gorgeous water view from my hotel bay window! And I can see the fiddle too!!
I got to watch it this evening during sunset when lights came on, and now it’s night and it’s lit up. It’s so pretty!
[The World’s Largest Fiddle at the harbor in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia - lit up at dusk.]
Can I just live here?
The dogs and I are loving the weather, the walks, and all the dogs and friends to meet on the boardwalk.
Soon it will be walk time again, then a much-needed shower for me. (So hard to shower at the campsite when the dogs aren’t allowed in that building and they would tear up the tent if I left them there, so it’s more “lock them in the car” time.)
The dogs and I are so happy to be in the hotel tonight. This blows all budget for this trip. But I may never be able to get back here and I want to feel close to my Mum & her side of the family, and I don’t know how else to do it. So I am here.
I am thinking that maybe this is my 52nd birthday present to myself - exploring the part of Canada that I had never been to & always wanted to go.
I have been to British Columbia a few times, Alberta - many places in Alberta. In fact, one of my favorite memories is white water rafting in Jasper, Alberta and that’s how my dog got his name. And I’ve been to Toronto, Ontario, which I love!
[My sweet Jasper - I was told he is an American Cocker Spaniel. People ask me constantly if he is a poodle. I am thinking, more and more, that he is a Cocker-Labradoodle.]
I wanted to go to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. I would like to get the bonus of going to Quebec too. Cirque du Soleil HQ is there.
Last week, in North Sydney, I rested a lot after that long drive. We did go to Walmart and to a food truck to get the best tasting lobster rolls I have ever had.
[The best lobster I have ever had - in my whole life! Courtesy of a food truck at 123 Queen Street, North Sydney, Nova Scotia.
More adventures coming this week!
Thank you for reading!
Have you been to Canada? What did you love about it? What was different for you when you visited, compared to where you have lived elsewhere?
What a delicious trip, love this so much!!