Sam Chapman

Anne of green gables (if she exisited) called this place home, its pretty the scary thing is the fact of still so few surnames, speaking to locals you get the feeling that family fueds go back to the time of the original occupation. The place names are funny if coming from england, cross the tyne and into new london, round the corner from kensington, its a mixed up naming system that seems to be reminisent on local humour.

I crossed the 13km bridge from prince edward island and then promptly got lost and near ran out of fuel. Fond a petrol station just in the nick of time to leave to nova scotia, hardly explored it at all…..

Cheap drink con-merchants, roveling guitar minstrals and easy medication supplies on every corner…. bizare

Me and my wife arrived sleepy from a short overnight flight looking for a quiet out of the way place (well after the main tourist season). With a hire car and a very bad free map we ended up stopping in the half shut sleepy town of pictou (where the scots landed and formed nova scotia (after burning and forcibly evicting the french descended arcadians…. Hmmm, oh well, I hoped they would be friendly)). Anyway stumbling into a busy looking cafe (through an unmarked door and down a coridor past a closed hairdressers and several community notice boards we found the cafe).

We negotiated a veggie breakfast with the staff (not on the menu), the place was packed with what we thought was local men muttering amongst themselves as we entered but we couldn’t figure out the dialect…

Later when eating the entire cafe except us suddenly stood up and burst into a full choral symphany song about the wind being behind you sails and it protecting island life. The singing was in very good english and probably the best choral singing I’ve every heard. Very confused, after a few more songs and being outnumbered 10 times by singers to the audience of 2 plus owner, I eventually found out it was obviously a group of 25 hungarian trainee ministers also just passing through the small quiet towns of nova scotia…. a slightly sureal introduction to Nova Scotia I thought, but it woke us up ready to explore further, the owner didn’t even bat an eyelid…

An interesting place.

the building alone is worthy seeing before you mention the content, budget half a day to see it though or you could be rushing round a little.

I visited as part of my 1 month honeymoon travel, i stopped here for a few days its a very very pretty city, but there are a few dodgy areas not to far from tourist parts. On the whole its a nice place but in the centre it can be possible to stray into streets lined with home people sleeping on the sidewalk and the road between cars. Nothing wrong with that but there is a distinctly threatening atmosphere in a few very small localised areas. If somewhere looks dodgy avoid and hang with locals and tourists.

victoria island is good if the weather is fine as you will find little to do inside. If the weather is good – best june-august – then i really recomend a whale watching tour, try to not get a big tourist boayt though go down to fishermans wharf and get one there, i had a boat to myself and you can wonder about and decide where and what you want to see, i saw transient killer whales, nearly crashed into a humpback as well as al the seals, sealions etc. (Make sure you go in the afternoon as then there is some idea of where things are from earlier trips, also ask what has already been seen today).

Vancouver is a nice city very relaxed and if coming from the larger cities of america a welcome change of pace. Grouse park is nice as is stanley park for roller blading etc etc. Stay central and you will really not need a car.

hope this helps someone

best time to go is about 5 pm on a mid weekday (having bought tickets in advance – you can use them whenever no fixed time/day), next to no queue at this time (15mins). You then get the day, sunset and big lights of the night and if you are very very lucky like me you also get a free fireworks display :) TOP

oh also forget the stupid cabbie tour unless you really know nothing about the city it was rubbish.

as friendly and helpfull as everyone is do not fall asleep on the underground and wake in in the bronx at 1am…. whoops

got married, saw elvis in a parking lot and was photgraphed for conde naste (vogue publishers)