August 26th was our last day at sea on this cruise. It was pretty normal day. I had signed up for the last hands-on cooking class -- we made brie encrout with a cranberry sauce, salmon and chocolate bread pudding. As always, the class included lunch in the Pinnacle Grill with the same menu that we cooked and a glass (or two) or wine. In the afternoon I went to bingo (I didn't win) and a contest for the best burger in the Culinary Arts Center. There was a talk about the Halifax Citadel and a bagpipe performance in the afternoon. We went to dinner in the dining room (one of our last chances) and to the show, which was a variety show of performers we had seen before.  

We had an early arrival at 6:30 AM in Halifax . The day was predicted to be in the 60's with a chance of rain. Since we had visited Halifax before, I had booked a Holland America tour called "Historic Lunenburg: A UNESCO World Heritage Site". The tour was scheduled to start at 8:30 and last for 7 hours..Our tour guide, Liz (named for Princess, now Queen Elizabeth) was dressed in a kilt in honor of the area's Scottish heritage. Nova Scotia means "New Scotland" in Latin. Halifax itself was is the second largest ice free harbor in the world (first is Sydney). Edward Cornwallis was sent to Halifax in 1749 by George II to claim the area for England, but there were also claims by the French. The Halifax metro area has about 400,000 of the province's 950,00 inhabitants. The weather in Halifax is similar to the that of the northeast USA and Liz told us "If your happiness depends on the weather, you will be miserable 90% of the time". The weather is coo to cold and wet typically, but moderated by the sea. So it is neither as cold or as warm as it is further inland

We drove along the scenic Lighthouse Route south of Halifax passing picturesque seaside villages, old captains's mansions and working waterfronts . We made a photo stop in Mahone Bay, known for its waterfront view of three church steeples. From there it was only a 15 minute drive to Lunenburg. 

Luxemburg was settled by Germans in the 1700's. They came to Nova Scotia because Germany was a British ally and Cornwallis suggest to the Crown that they needed some "hard-working industrious settlers" like the Germans and Swiss. Settlers were offered 30 acres and rations for 2 years to settle around Halifax, but the area was not good for farming. The settlers ended up moving south and the town of Luxemburg was established. The town was laid out in a grid pattern as required by Governor Lawrence. The town is one of only tow places in North America that still has the original grid street pattern (the other is Savannah, Georgia). Many of the original buildings survive and many feature the "Lunenburg bump", an outcropping of the building above the front door. Although most of the original settlers were farmers, the farming was not great, so they had to fish as well . And to fish, they needed fishing boats -- and so the ship building industry in Luxemburg was born. The town is known for the racing schooners built there.

We took a brief walking tour of the town beginning at the Luxemburg Academy (once a high school, but now a sailing school) and ended with a tour of St. John's Anglican Church. The church was beautiful, having been built in 18th century and restored about 10 years ago. Inside the church they had one of the very rare copies of a Bible that has the "Parable of the Vinegar" . The story goes that when some Bibles were being printed in 1716-17, John Baskett (Printer to the King" made a mistake in typesetting and 12 Bibles were printed that said that workers were sent to the vinegar rather than the vineyard in one of Jesus' parables. The mistake was caught after the 12 were printed, so there were only 12 in existence to begin with and only 3 remain. The Bible came to St. John's in 1761, but was sold by the reverend's widow in 1766 . The Bible changed hands multiple times, but was repatriated to St. John's in time for its 255th anniversary in 2008.

By the time we got to the church it had started raining and when our tour there ended, it was still raining. Karl and I found a place to have lunch (and get out of the rain). When we finished lunch it had stopped raining, so we walked along the waterfront and looked at a couple of the famous ships on display -- the Bluenose II (a replica of the original unbeaten racing schooner) and the Piston Castle, a tall ship used by the Lunenburg sailing school.

We made a couple short stops on the way back to Halifax and the ship. The ship sailed at 4:00 PM. After dinner we went to the show, which was a repeat performance of the Alley Cats. We enjoyed the show and called it a night early as we had another day in port tomorrow (our last port of the cruise!).