The brewery was a nice quiet place to spend the night and we awoke refreshed and ready for the day. Our first stop of the day would be Annapolis Royal, but before that, how’s this for a view?
Views such as this are commonplace in the Annapolis valley, it’s hard to express how tranquil and beautiful this part of Nova Scotia is.
As we pulled into Annapolis Royal the mature maple trees that lined the narrow streets and plentiful flowering shrubs next to historic old houses told us that this is a special town.
We maneuvered the van downtown and noticed that it was very busy with many parking spaces filled along the roads. I was about to start casting doubt as to whether we would find a space into which we would fit when out of the corner of my eye I spotted an opening in a small public parking lot, I turned hard left and entered via the exit turned about and parked facing the exit of the lot. Voila, parking done. And it’s free!
Below are a few pictures from downtown showing some of the wonderful old buildings.
We walked back toward Fort Anne that we passed on the way in. It is a Parks Canada property that you can wander around for free paying an entry fee only if you wanted to tour the officers building on-site. The fort was established in 1629 on mik’maq land. Over the years it was occupied by both the French and the English as they fought over control of the land in the area. It is a four-bastion fort that has a clear view down the Annapolis River toward Digby making it easily defendable from waterborne attack.
We enjoyed walking about the grassy defenses and took a quick look in the semi buried powder magazine where gunpowder was stored. The building is the oldest that Parks Canada owns anywhere in Canada having been built in 1708. The officers building is from the late 1700’s.
Below is an example of one Rhododendron that we spotted in town, there were others equally as beautiful. We can only wish to grow such a plant in Ontario.
From the fort we wandered back along the Main Street and stumbled upon the cause of the traffic, Saturday morning market! It was nice to see the local producers and artisans setup and the townspeople out enjoying what was a welcomed spot of sunshine and nice weather. We purchased a couple of savory pies and enjoyed them waterside.
After lunch we returned to the van and headed out of town heading towards Digby, NS. Digby is a fishing port world renowned for the size and quality of the scallops caught. Yumm!
We will be spending three nights at the Digby campground which is on the edge of town next to a walking trail along the abandoned railway line that we can follow into the downtown therefore avoiding the worst of the hills. Here we are shortly after arriving, relaxing and enjoying what would be the last of the sunshine we’d see for a couple of days.
Barb took a short walk down to the waters edge and wandered along the tidal flats looking for shells and took a few photos that I’ve shared below.
Our next post will be in a couple of days in which we will summarize our two days about town.