Friday 4 Oct – Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site
Our first stop was at the Fortress of Louisbourg, the ruins and partial reconstruction of an 18th century French colonial town. This site brings us back to French colonial life between 1713 and 1758. Home to the L’nu, also known as the Mi’kmaq, since time immemorial, the 18th century brought French, Basque, German, English, Irish, Scottish, and African people to its shores.
The Fortress of Louisbourg is the largest historical reconstruction in North America and worth the visit.
From here we made our way to Sydney, no we are not going home – yet. But there is a Sydney (and a North Sydney) here in Nova Scotia. Stories are being told that people bought a plane ticket to Sydney NS, thinking they would land in Sydney Australia 😂
Sydney is a small town with just over 30.000 people, but it has a great boardwalk and a cruise terminal.
Sydney is also the home of the world largest fiddle. The Big Fiddle, as many call it, was designed and constructed by Cyril Hearn in 2005. It is a tribute to the folk music and traditions of the province’s Celtic community.
Made of solid steel, the giant fiddle was dubbed FIDHEAL MHOR A’ CEILIDH or the “Big Fiddle of the Ceilidh”. Ceilidh is a Gaelic word which translates in to “visit”.
After this we went to our destination for today; Baddeck. This is also the place where Alexander Bell settled in 1886 and there is a large museum dedicated to him. We walked through the museum and were amazed by the things he invented or was involved with their invention over the many years of his life. We thought this would be a great place to take our grand kids for them to see how this magic of what we now call a mobile phone all came about.
We concluded another great day where we not only travelled as far east as we will go on this trip but also learnt a few new things on the way.