Monday, September 28th, 2009, Halifax, New Scotland (Nova Scotia):The Citadel

Unfortunately the day dawned overcast and foggy with occasional light rain. Nonetheless we decided to walk up to the hill just above the harbor where the Citadel was located and maybe then push on to a Canadian tire where I could try to purchase some MolySlip Lube, as I just used my last bottle in the transmission of the Miata.

We set off right after breakfast and entered the Citadel shortly after it opened at 9:00 a.m. We first attended a set of four audio-visual presentations in a series of small theaters built into the casements on one side of the fort. Each presentation detailed the history of Halifax during the periods like early settlement, the English-French wars for domination of North America, the American Revolution and War of 1812, the Victorian Period, and the two World Wars. The repeated theme was that the harbor of Halifax was valued in time of war and no expense was spared to prepare defenses for the town and harbor, leading to periods of prosperity. In times of peace, however, the town languished economically and those defenses were typically neglected and fell into disrepair.

We just caught the guided tour that started at 10:00 a.m., and that lasted about 45 minutes. Our guide, a young university student dressed in the authentic kilted costume of the Scottish Highlander regiments once stationed at the Citadel, told us about the life and times of the soldiers. We toured a typical barracks room and the guard hall with its adjacent cells for punishing soldiers for minor infractions like drunkenness.

Our guide also led us outside into the defensive ditch and the musket gallery that ran around the outside of the ditch. The musket gallery had loopholes from which defenders could fire at point blank range into any assailants who made their way up hill and into the ditch. Cannon portholes in the main body of the fort could be used to fire grape shot down the ditch, so attackers would have been caught in a rather murderous crossfire. In the event, however, the Citadel was never actually attacked so none of the defenses were ever used.

I wanted to see the military museum on the second floor of the main barracks building, and that took me another half an hour or so. Although beautiful examples of weapons from several military eras was presented, I was particularly impressed to find a pristine example of a Gatling gun with all its bronze perfectly polished. A much more chilling descendant was the Maxim water-cooled machine gun that wrecked so much havoc on the Western Front during WWII. And I solved one mystery when I found out that Walther PPK I inherited from my father actually stands for Walther "Polizei Pistole Kriminale" which roughly translates as "police pistol for use against criminals". Who knew?

Having survived the U.S. bombings of Hamburg during WWII, Monika does not deal with death and destruction very well, so she waited outside the museum until I was finished and then we had lunch using the eggs, rolls, and sandwiches we had brought off the ship. It was raining lightly but steadily by that point but we sat underneath the overhang on the second floor of the barracks and had a nice, if misty, view out over the interior of the Citadel. By the time we finished it was almost time for firing of the Noon gun, so we checked out the gift shop for a few minutes and then climbed the stairs to the battlements where the gun was fired. Given all the rain, I was not too surprised that the first attempt to fire the noon gun resulted in a misfire, but the young gunner inserted another igniter and repeated the procedure, at which point the gun roared out most satisfyingly.

Taking leave of the Citadel, we curled around to walk another kilometer or two into the city to find the Canadian Tire, which turned out to be exactly where my GPS said it would be. After searching high and low for Moly Slip Lube, I asked the man at the parts counter and he said that they did not carry that product any more. Drat, another wild-goose chase! Monika found her coffee-making kit for $3 Canadian and another rum drink at the liquor shop next door, so our excursion was not a total waste but after three hours of wandering around the Citadel plus the extra walking we were rather fatigued on our way back to the ship.

Partly because we were tired and looking for park benches to rest on, we chose a route back to the ship that passed along the Public Gardens and Victoria Gardens. The Public Gardens had very nice flower beds and floral displays, something I have come to associate with the British culture and find very pleasant. The landscaping was also well done with a graceful bridge spanning a small artificial creek, complete with a waterfall, and streamside decorations such as a doll house and statuary.

Having rested a bit, we continued through Victoria gardens and then turned toward the harbor area and zig-zagged our way down to our ship. Despite not having a picture ID, Monika was able to get onto the ship after the guard checked the ships register using his laptop, which avoided my having to go back to the cabin to retrieve her ID and then come back out to the screening area. Monika had some more to eat while I put my feet up for a bit, and then we both watched the ship ease away from the dock and steam out of the harbor.

The evening production show was entitled "Cirque Bijou", and was really a wonderful cruise-ship version of a Cirque de Soleil performance. We watched in amazement as the various acrobats performed on apparatus such as a ropes, a trapeze, a cage and the "silks", double strands of fabric hung from the ceiling which the performer uses to do acrobatic routines. Those stunts look difficult and hazardous even when performed on dry land, to me a least, but they certainly took on an added degree of danger when performed on a rolling ship! We all liked the performance very much and it was a very nice climactic performance for the cruise.