"Nova Scotia in September" Province of Nova Scotia by Redlats

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In 2004, we revisited Nova Scotia (NS) after last visiting 23 years earlier. We had planned to only spend one week in NS before moving on to PEI or NB, but landed up spending 2 1/2 weeks in NS.

Our NS pages are set up to try and assist other VT members plan their own NS vacations. Planning your NS vacation is a little easier than a Newfoundland holiday. You don't have the island issue, and things are close enough that you are able to change your mind on a NS trip. We certainly changed our minds quite a bit - our actual itinerary was quite different than planned. I will use this page to describe our trip and direct you to our pages that cover the highlights of our trip.

After our positive experience with bed and breakfasts in Newfoundland, we continued to frequent B&B's in NS.

After a week in Newfoundland, we flew to Halifax, rented a car and on Day 1, we were looking for a quiet place with a long beach to walk. We needed to recharge our batteries for a day or two. Just outside the Halifax airport, we asked at an info booth if there were any nice beaches to walk in NS and were told that there are a lot of beaches on the south shore of NS, so we headed straight south from the airport, and landed up in Tatamagouche, NS.

The info booth person stretched the truth a little -- there are very few beaches on the south shore of NS, but she kept us in NS that night instead of taking the ferry to PEI (so I guess she was doing her job).

On Day 2, after realizing beaches are not that widespread in northern NS, we decided to head north on the Sunrise Trail to visit an area we have visited previously - the Cabot Trail on Cape Breton Island. You can see some of the places we visited on the way to the Cape Breton Highlands park by checking these tips.

By the end of Day 3, we had travelled the Ceilidh Trail to Chéticamp -- one of the gateways to the national park. We attended our first Ceilidhs (pronounced kaylees) and fell in love with them.

We spent Day 4 on the Cabot Trail in Cape Breton Highlands NP, and Day 5 north of the park reaching the end of the road at Meat Cove.

On Day 6, we reached Louisbourg where we spent a day and a half at Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Park.

After our second day at Louisbourg, we drove back towards the Canso Causeway, stopping at Rita's Tea Shop at Big Pond (that will only mean something to people who watch CBC TV).

Day 8 found us driving to from Cape Breton to Truro where we had to have some maintenance done on our rent-a-car. From Truro, we travelled the Evangeline Trail, stopping to watch the tide come in on the Bay of Fundy. We spent the evening in Grand-Pré.

Day 9 and 10 were spent in Annapolis Royal. In Annapolis Royal we visited historic sites such as Port Royal and Fort Anne as well as saw flowers at the Historic Gardens and watched the tides go by the tidal power plant.

This is as far as I got in creating my Nova Scotia page. One day I will finish it. We are planning on going back to the Maritimes to finish our tour - we just had not expected it to take four years to go back.

On Day 11 we hiked in Kejimkujik National Park. Day 12 and 13 we based in Clearwater and Day 14 and 15 at the world heritage site in Lunenburg.

• In a nutshell:Seasides, history, music - Nova Scotia has something for everybody