The Cabot Trail, St. Peter’s Church, Les Trois Pignons

09/15/202509/25/2025Irene Leave a comment

After a nice buffet breakfast, we boarded the bus and explored the Cabot Trail. This is a scenic highway with breathtaking coastal and mountain views. It meanders through the Cape Breton Highlands National Park and is considered one of the most beautiful scenic highway in Nova Scotia. Along the way, we stopped at a few of the overlooks to take in the seaside splendor.

We passed through seaside villages and enjoyed seeing the quaint homes tucked into either the mountain or dotted along the shore. The trail is named for John Cabot, the Italian-born seafarer (who sailed for Great Britain), and who arrived at Cape Breton Island in 1497.

Our first stop along the trail was a visit to St. Peter’s Church. This majestic Catholic church is a major landmark along the trail and was erected under the guidance of Father Pierre Fiset in the early 1890s. It features beautiful frescoes and a very large, ornate altar. The stained glass windows to me, however, seemed out of place with the rest of the elaborate frescoes, as they were more modern looking than I thought should have been featured in the church.

The church was built in 1893, and a silver spire shoots into the sky, that is visible from miles away. Interestingly, the sandstone was quarried in nearby Chéticamp Island and was hauled across the frozen harbor.

After visiting the church, we drove to Les Trois Pignons, which houses the Museum of the Hooked Rug and Home Life, an Acadian, cultural, genealogical and visitor information center. The gallery features original antiques, of which 90% were amassed by Marguerite Gallant, who is remembered as a woman “brave enough to go her own way, to dress as she wished, and to live life to the fullest”.

The museum also features the works of Elizabeth LeFort. Elizabeth was a Canadian tapestry artist, known for replicating photographs, including portraits, in hooked rugs. Other artists’ works are also displayed in the museum. The works are beautiful and it was amazing to see this technique and appreciate the work that goes into each work of art.

We had a box lunch in the park and then continued on our drive back to our chalet, seeing more of the seaside. Our guide during the tour, Trish, was entertaining and told us a lot of history about the area as well as about her own life.

Rain threatened and then broke through while we were on the bus, but stopped each time we disembarked so we were lucky.

Allan and I decided to stay at the lodge for dinner, enjoying a salmon dinner, and then it was back to our chalet for the night.

Sunrise this morning

View from our room

St. Peter’s Church.

St Peter’s Church

Father Pierre Fiset tomb in the church

Neil Harbor lighthouse

Some of the artifacts amassed by Marguerite Gallant

Below are some of the hooked rugs on display.

US presidents through John F. Kennedy

Beautiful seaside scenery

Sunset just beginning over the water as we enjoyed dinner.

Baddeck

09/14/202509/25/2025Irene

Accommodation: The Silver Dart Lodge

We started our day traveling to Baddeck. Baddeck is a village in Cape Breton Island in northeastern Nova Scotia. According to Wikipedia, “The area was first occupied by Mi’kmaq people and later settled by United Empire Loyalists and Scottish Gaels in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The area prospered in the 19th and early 20th centuries as a service and shipping center for surrounding mining, trapping, fishing, forestry, and farming activities. Today the economy depends on services, cultural activities, and tourism.”

Along the way to Baddeck, we stopped to visit the Millbrook Cultural & Heritage Center, a museum dedicated to the region’s indigenous Mi’kmaq people.

The Mi’kmaq are an indigenous group of people native primarily to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. They also have settled in Quebec and in the northeastern region of Maine.

In southwestern Nova Scotia, there is archaeological evidence that traces land and resources attributed to the Mi’kmaq to at least 4,000 years ago. Our Mi’kmaq guide was very interesting as she told us all about her life and it was an enjoyable presentation

We had a lovely lunch at a local restaurant, and the folks on a Tauck tour were also there enjoying the scenery and cuisine with us. Then it was on to visit the Alexander Graham Bell museum. What an amazing man he was. As children, we were taught that Bell invented the telephone… But we were never told of his other numerous inventions or that his real passion and love was teaching deaf children.

Bell was born in Scotland. His grandfather, and brother had all been associated with work on speech pathology, (at the time called elocution). Bell’s mother was deaf, which profoundly influenced his life’s work…amazingly, not his invention of the telephone…but rather, teaching the deaf.

Bell courted and eventually married a deaf young girl named Mabel Hubbard, who became deaf at the age of five, after having scarlet fever. Her father had hired Alexander to assist with her articulation, as he was known as the best tutor for the deaf in Boston, where he lived at the time. She was 15 and he was 25. It wasn’t love at first sight. It was said she quipped about Bell…“He was tall and dark with jet-black hair and eyes, but dressed badly and carelessly. I could never marry such a man!” She even wrote in her journal, “I both did and did not like him.”

But Mabel eventually did fall in love with Alexander and they married and she was at his side as he pursued his life’s work as inventor, scientist, and engineer, and who of course, is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. The range of Bell’s inventive genius is represented only in part by the patents granted in his name alone and the 12 he shared with his collaborators.

These include 14 for the telephone and telegraph, four for the photo phone, 1 for the phonograph, five for aerial vehicles, four for hydroplanes, and two for selenium cells. His inventions even included a jacket to assist breathing…really the first iron lung.

Bell is also credited with developing one of the early versions of a metal detector. After the shooting of President James Garfield, when the medical staff could not locate the bullet lodged in Garfield’s body, Alexander developed a kind of metal detector to find the bullet. According to some accounts, the metal detector worked flawlessly in tests but did not find the bullet, partly because the metal bed frame on which the President was lying disrupted the instrument. The bullet was never found and Garfield ultimately died.

Our guide told us that Mabel and Alexander had a beautiful life together and were very much in love. Mabel was at his side as he pursued his experiments in different fields in Baddeck, Canada, where they lived and worked for 35 years in a large home called Beinn Bhreagh, which was perched on a peninsula jutting into Bras d’Or Lake. Everyday the couple would walk hand and hand down the mountain and back up again to their home…a nighttime journey at 5 pm, that became a ritual. When Alexander died, he was buried on top of the mountain where their home was. Mabel kept her hand on the coffin as it climbed the mountain at exactly 5 pm, in memory of all the times they walked hand and hand together. He died on August 2, 1923, a few days after his 75th birthday. When his funeral finished around 6:30 pm, as a mark of respect, every telephone exchange in the United States and Canada closed for a minute of silence. His wife Mabel died five months later of a broken heart.

I highly recommend reading more about this amazing man. When he was asked what he most wanted to be remembered for, he didn’t say inventing the telephone, but rather… being a teacher of deaf children, which was his true passion.

And in the pictures below, read about IRENE…Image Reconstruct, Erase Noise, Etc. another amazing thing that took place many years after Bell’s death.

After touring the museum, we went to our accommodations for the next three nights…The Silver Dart Lodge. Allan and I are in a lovely little chalet overlooking a lake. So romantic. We went to dinner at the lodge and had a great time laughing and talking with new friends. It was a fabulous day!

At the Millbrook Cultural Center

Millbrook cultural center

Beautiful scenery and the Kidston lighthouse, on Bras d’Or lake. The original lighthouse was built in 1875 and the present one was built in 1912. The two lighthouses stood side by side for some time. The lighthouse can only be accessed by boat; a ferry going there operates during the summer months.

Enlargement of Alexander’s experiment drawings

Artifacts and furniture of Alexander Graham Bell

More about IRENE technology

Our view from our chalet

Our chalet

Our second day in Halifax

09/13/202509/25/2025Irene 2 Comments

Accommodation: Four Points Halifax Hotel

Halifax is a beautiful city and our hotel is right in its heart… with many sites nearby, places to eat, and only steps away from the Atlantic ocean.

We were in Halifax in 2023 on a Viking cruise, but we didn’t have the opportunity to walk around the city. At that time, we opted to take an onshore excursion, that featured the sites we saw on our bus tour today.

The Fairlawn cemetery, our first stop, is the final resting place of over 100 victims of the Titanic disaster. What I didn’t know from our previous visit, is that the graves are arranged in the shape of a ship, tapering towards the “bow” and wider at the “stern”.

The coroner, who was tasked with the job of trying to identify the victims that were pulled from the icy waters, had an almost hopeless undertaking. Most of the victims did not have any identification on them. In order to attempt identification, he numbered the bodies as they came to the morgue, and then wrote down eye color, hair color, and tried to guess at ethnicity. Sometimes though, he made assumptions. A person with red hair was assumed to be Irish, but of course, that wasn’t always the case.

There are also graves from the 1917 Halifax explosion, the largest manmade explosion in history before the atomic bomb. It was caused by the collision of the French explosives-laden ship SS Mont-Blanc and the Norwegian ship SS Imo in Halifax Harbour, resulting in about 2,000 deaths, thousands injured, and widespread destruction of the city’s north end.

We boarded our bus again and enjoyed seeing the beautiful neighborhoods, as we passed through them on the way to the Citadel, a former British and Canadian military site.

At the Citadel, the Royal Artillery at noon each day, fires a cannon. We arrived just in time to hear the cannon fire, and even though we knew it was happening, we all jumped out of our skin. Wow… It was loud!!!

We enjoyed lunch at a local restaurant, dining on haddock which was delicious. We enjoyed talking with some of the folks on the tour and we had a lovely time.

After the tour, Allan and I walked the boardwalk and then went to the Alexander Keith brewery. Alexander immigrated from Scotland to Nova Scotia in 1817 and founded the brewery in 1820. He served as Mayor of Halifax from 1843–1844 and again from 1852–1853.

Unfortunately, all the tours for the brewery for today were sold out, but the man gave us two tickets to enjoy free beers at a restaurant around the corner from the brewery. The beers were very good… Nice and dark.

Allan and I went to dinner at a local restaurant and had the lobster dinner and then it was off to bed.

If you would like to know more about Halifax and what we saw today, please go to my 2023 Canada, Greenland, and Iceland blog post as I go into much more detail about the sites we saw today.

Halifax

09/12/202509/25/2025Irene 2 Comments

Accommodations: Four Points Halifax

Our plane ride was great… We were only 7 minutes late landing, and given we sat on the tarmack before takeoff for over 30 minutes, that was pretty good.

We Ubered to the hotel and met our guide Greg. Then we checked into our hotel room, which is very spacious, and met some of the group for an orientation walk

We’ve been to Halifax before, so we were familiar with the layout of the city. It is a lovely city and it was a beautiful day, and we are right by the water and the boardwalk, which we will walk tomorrow afternoon.

After the orientation, Allan and I went for dinner at the Wooden Monkey. Farm fresh offerings and our food was very tasty. Allan had the meatballs and pasta and I had Nova Scotia salmon.

After dinner we walked back to the hotel and we were amazed to see the natives wearing shorts sans jackets! It was chilly tonight and I was happy I had my raincoat on to block the wind.

Some of the folks we’ve met so far on the trip seen very nice and it looks like it will be a good group.

Till tomorrow, eh?

Cocktails on the Lanai

09/03/202504/07/2025Irene

Our friends in Florida all have porches that they call lanais (pronounced la-ni with a long i sound on the “ni”)

It is such a lovely sounding exotic word, even though it just means a porch…either enclosed or open air.

We have a glass and screen enclosed back porch here in Bethlehem, and I told Allan I was going to start using the word lanai when referring to it.

“Sweetheart, please show the guests to the lanai”. “Be a dear and put the martinis out on the lanai”. “I think I’ll take my lemonade and magazines out to the lanai”. “If anyone calls, I will be napping on the lanai”.

Allan retorted “She was found strangled…on the lanai”.

I’m beginning to realize “Porch” is a delightful word as well.

The Canadian Maritimes: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick & Prince Edward Island

09/01/202509/02/2025Irene

We’re off on another adventure – this time to Canada to see Halifax, Baddeck, Peggy’s Cove, and lots of sites on the way. It is a land tour and we will be covering a lot of ground with the 37 other folks who will be with us. We leave on September 12…so stay tuned.

Does Happiness Come with Age?

08/03/202503/26/2025Irene

I was having a glass of wine while reading a friend’s blog and one article on it that was brought to my attention… “Does Happiness Come With Age?”

According to the article…”people start out at age 18 feeling pretty good about themselves, and then, apparently, life begins to throw curve balls. They feel worse and worse until they hit 50. At that point, there is a sharp reversal, and people keep getting happier as they age. By the time they are 85, they are even more satisfied with themselves than they were at 18.”

In the survey, people over the age of 50 were asked whether they experienced the following emotions during a large part of the day yesterday: Enjoyment, happiness, stress, worry, anger, sadness. And apparently, those of us over the age of 50 shouted “Yes, by God! Enjoyment and happiness! Yesterday was a great day!” But, we conveniently leave off the “I think so at least…from what I can remember.”

Well…it’s good to know that it’s all uphill from here. All delirious delight and enchanting elation. All euphoric excitement and blissful beatitude.

But then again, that just might be the wine talking.

We’re Not in New York Anymore

07/05/202507/27/2025Irene

As a former New Yorker I have to say, when someone rings your doorbell and you are alone in the house, you usually:

a. Pretend you don’t hear the bell
b. Go to the window and peek out and see who’s there just in case you have to identify them later in a lineup
c. Request that the person shows twenty forms of ID…from their driver’s license and passport to their baby hospital pics and their 9th grade junior high school graduation photo, produce a list of all the medicines they are currently taking, a document of any previous surgery experiences and an assurance validated and signed by their doctor that they have not spent more than a year in a mental facility. It is also helpful to check out their DinersClub Card, cause, hey you never know.

Needless to say, you didn’t open the door to a stranger if you were home alone. You always would read about the good Samaritan who opened the front door to the stranger who claimed their car broke down while on their way to the Mayo Clinic to donate a kidney and half their liver to their dying cousin and they therefore needed to use the phone to call the hospital and explain the delay. While the kind homeowner was fetching the phone for the visitor, the stranger’s “partners in crime” would be sneaking into the back door and carting out the plasma TVs.

Well, we lived in the mountains of Connestee and it had been raining there. Allan was out at a meeting and my doorbell rang. I looked out to see a little elderly lady standing at the door totally drenched and holding three books and a board game in her hands.

“May I come in and use your phone?” she queried, seeing me through the screen door. (Mental note #1: Remember to close inside door when Allan isn’t here!) . “I was walking home from the clubhouse library and got caught in the rain and need to call someone to pick me up. My grandchildren are visiting and I stopped at the library to pick up some things to keep them amused and on my way home, all of a sudden, it started to downpour!”

Now, being a New Yorker, I am embarrassed to admit, I looked her up and down as various scenarios played through my brain. Hmmm…she says she was walking home from the clubhouse. That in and of itself is a feat since the mountain roads were quite strenuous to navigate on foot. I don’t recognize her, so that tells me she didn’t live on my road. It also tells me that this little lady is no doubt in good physical condition as she is quite a distance from her home if, in fact, she actually lived in Connestee. Will she tackle me the minute I turn my back to procure the phone for her?

And those books that were in her hands. Was she carrying them to use as weapons if I didn’t move fast enough when she demanded my jewelry and my aunt Audrey’s Rice Charlotte recipe? Had there been any reports of break ins in the neighborhood as of late? (Actually, in all the years we’d lived there…we’d only heard of one!!) And wait…forget the books. Maybe she actually HAD a weapon…perhaps a knife or a gun hidden underneath those book decoys. (I’d been watching too much CSI).

And what about that board game she was toting. Clue? I mean really. Was she playing that in her spare time to hone in on her skills? I could just see the headlines…The murder was committed by Mrs. Elderly Lady, with a book, in the parlor near the telephone!

I decided I could take her if need be, no matter what, even if she did walk the roads of Connestee, since I had been working out myself and heck, I walked those roads too. Okay, I’m huffing and puffing after the first two miles, but nonetheless. (Allan later said when I told him the story, that I’m so buff, had she tried to shoot me I could have probably grabbed the bullet in my teeth and yelled…”Yeah??? What else have ya got?!!”)

So, I let her in and not only offered her the phone, but offered her a cup of coffee and a towel to dry off with. After a phone call to her home with no one answering, I told her I would drive her home myself. We dashed into the car in the pouring rain and off we went.

Anyway, I came home and thought to myself…it’s so nice that we lived in a community where all you have to do is walk up and ring someone’s bell…and you know you’ve got a friend.

And since I was a New Yorker (and probably always will be in my heart), Mental note #2: Now I know where she lives!!

June 16 – Explore Roskilde

06/17/202506/22/2025Irene

Accommodations: Scandic palace hotel

After breakfast we traveled by train and bus to Roskilde, the one-time capital city of Denmark.

We visited the Roskilde Cathedral, the first Gothic-style cathedral to be built of brick. More than 40 kings and queens have been buried in the cathedral over the past 1,000 years, which is the most royal cathedral burials in the world. Roskilde Cathedral has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995.

The cathedral is beautiful, with unique royal chapels along the sides of the main cathedral, each containing the remains of royal families. Each chapel is unique and each reflect the changing architecture across 800 years, from the Viking kings, to Gothic architecture, across the Reformation, and up until the finished funeral monument for Denmark’s current queen, Queen Margrethe 2.

We had lunch in a quaint restaurant and the food and wine – outstanding!

We then visited the Roskilde’s Viking Ship Museum, dedicated to studying and preserving the boat-building and seafaring techniques of Denmark’s ancient and medieval people.

Around the year 1070, five Viking ships were deliberately sunk in Roskilde fjord, in order to block the most important fairway and to protect Roskilde from an enemy attack from the sea. The five ships were found and excavated in 1962 and are on display at the museum.

We took the bus and train back to our hotel and then went to the Farewell Dinner, as tomorrow we all leave for home. It was a wonderful adventure and we loved seeing the gorgeous scenery, eating the food, and marveling at the sites. Till next time…Ha det.

Roskilde

Beautiful garden for the bees

The Roskilde cathedral

One of the chapels

And another chapel

And yet another chapel

And another chapel

Healing waters. We all washed our hands in the water.

Lunch at Pipers Hus restaurant

One of the original Viking ships

Farewell Dinner appetizer

Steak dinner

June 15 – Explore Christiania – Tivoli Gardens – Glyptotek Museum – Open Air Ballet – Open Air Classical Concert

06/16/202506/16/2025Irene

Accommodations: Scandic Palace Hotel

This morning after breakfast, we took the bus to explore Freetown Christiania. Christiania was founded in 1971, when a group of people – hippies, artists, and activists – cut a hole in the fence to an abandoned military barracks, and declared the area a free town, independent of Danish government laws and regulations. While it has since accepted some adherence to Danish law, it is still semi-autonomous today, and is a haven for artists, musicians, and those seeking an alternative lifestyle.

We met with a local resident of the town, who said to Heidi, not realizing she had on a hot mike, “I’m kinda nursing a two day hangover!” That was what we heard in our ear pieces. Too funny!

There are about 900 people in Freetown, and most of the people have built their own primitive housing. The houses do have electricity and water and the residents do pay taxes to the Danish government. There is a doctor in residence, but most of the people prefer to be treated with alternative methods first, before seeking medical care. They do get vaccines.

The people can buy things they need in the shops and there are organic restaurants, art galleries, and gardens. I have never seen so many gorgeous shades of roses that are growing all over the place. Cameras are prohibited in certain areas to protect the alternative nature of the community.

Christiania is run by its residents, who collectively make decisions through a consensus-based democratic process.

Since its opening, Christiania has been famous for its open cannabis trade, which took place on Pusher Street in the community. When local residents removed the Pusher Street stalls, it was estimated that the cannabis sale dropped by about 75%. As of June 2023, there were numerous cannabis sellers on Pusher Street openly selling their wares from makeshift stalls with spray painted signs advertising the strain of cannabis for sale. In August 2023, residents had had enough and they blocked the entrances to Pusher Street with concrete barriers and bars, but it is still sold on the quiet. Cannabis is illegal in Denmark, so if the police catch you buying it, you will be arrested.

In 2012, the Danish government offered to sell most of the land that Christiania was on to the residents at below the market rate, and offered guaranteed loans. In exchange, the Christianians promised to upgrade and maintain water, sewage, and electrical services, and preserve rights of way and “rural” areas.

It was a very unique and kind of crazy learning experience. I think Rick Steves, the travel guru, sums it up when he writes:

“A few years ago I received an email from some readers who’d visited. They said: ‘We’re not prudes, but Christiania was creepy. Don’t take kids here or go after dark.’ A free city is not pretty; I agree. But watching parents raise their children with Christiania values, I came to believe more strongly than ever in this social experiment. Giving alternative-type people a place to be alternative is a kind of alternative beauty that deserves a place.”
Amen!

After chatting with our guide, we all boarded the bus to go to Tivoli Gardens, the second-oldest amusement park in the world, that opened in 1843. We enjoyed lunch there, but Allan and I weren’t interested in going on any of the 30 rides they have, so instead we went to the Glyptotek museum. We toured the Degas exhibit, the Egyptian exhibits, as well as the numerous works by Norwegian-Danish sculptor Stephan Sinding that were on display.

After the museum, we went back to Tivoli Gardens to see the ballet performance of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale Clumsy Hans, in the open air theater. It was very good. Then we went to another open air theater to see conductor Phillip Faber and hear his orchestra play classical selections, alongside soprano Louise McClelland. We were treated to music by Mozart, Vivaldi, and Strauss and Ms. McClelland sang Summertime and finished with O Mio Bambino Caro, one of my all time favorite arias.

And then…Allan and I finished the day with McDonald’s. It was really delicious, but we didn’t have ketchup for our fries, because we didn’t realize… they charge extra for it and we had already paid for our meal.

Our guide in Christiania

One of the buildings

The residents build their homes and on-site is a warehouse with recycled material from previous homes, that the people can purchase and use to build with.