This morning we woke up to very dense fog. (See below.) I don’t think I’ve ever been in such dense fog for such a long time.

We ate breakfast downstairs and then headed out down Decatur St. (duh-kay-ter) to Toulouse St. (toe-loose) where we met a guide (BilliJo) for a plantation tour. We boarded one bus, but then we had to move to another bus since the first one had some sort of problem. Not a very auspicious beginning to today’s excursion. Eventually we got on a bus and there weren’t any more vehicle troubles.

Abstract (because I know nobody reads the whole thing anyway)

We flew to New Orleans and walked around the French Quarter.

Today we began another adventure. We began the day in Denver, CO and ended up in New Orleans, LA (pronounced: naw-lens). My day started at 04:00. Yes, that’s 4 AM. Let’s just say I don’t want to have to wake up at 04:00 again any time soon.

Today we rode the entire hop on hop off circuit and walked around the Montreal underground city.

Tim Hortons

For breakfast we decided to go to Tim Hortons. It’s the thing to do in Canada. I got a coffee. Because that’s what you do at Tim’s.

Hop on Hop Off Bus

It was raining very hard as the weather report predicted so we didn’t want to do anything outside. (We were extremely glad that we’d done all of the outside stuff yesterday.) The hop on hop off bus was a double decker bus with an open top, but the bottom was covered. We had to walk to the bus stop though, and we got pretty wet doing so.

Today we disembarked from the cruise and went to a few sites in Montreal.

Disembarkation and Arrival at the Hotel

The disembarkation went smoothly and we were able to get a taxi to the hotel very easily. We were unable to check in to our room, but the hotel stored our luggage and the concierge gave us some information on where to go to get the hop on hop off bus of the city.

Today we went on a walking tour of Quebec City.

Lower Town

Quebec City is divided into two parts, the upper town and the lower town. The dividing line is a tall cliff, so the upper town is literally above the lower town. The lower town is the part of the town closest to the water and therefore closest to the place where we docked.

Today we were at sea. I managed to stay fairly busy but it wasn’t a very exciting day. I played some chess and ping pong and went to the show, but other than that it wasn’t an interesting day. Tomorrow we are in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada so it should be more interesting.

Today we went on a car tour through Prince Edward Island and then we walked around a bit in downtown Charlottetown.

Car Tour

Our guide took us on a large loop around the center of Price Edward Island (PEI). If you think of the island as a U with the straight parts lopped off but fat in the middle, you have a pretty good idea of what the shape of the island is. It takes about 5 hours to drive from one end to the other. We drove around the right part of the “fat” part of the island. We drove north to the North Shore then along the shore before curving back around and driving back to Charlottetown.

Today we went on a bus tour which took us to the Alexander Graham Bell Museum.

Alexander Graham Bell Museum

The Ride to the Museum

On our way to the Alexander Graham Bell Museum, our guide talked about a few interesting things about Sydney, Nova Scotia, and Canada in general. (He also said some of this on the ride back, but I’ll just summarise it all here.)

Today we went to the Canadian Immigration Museum and the Halifax Citadel.

Our original plan was to do a Segway tour of Halifax, but because of the weather, the tour was cancelled. We were very disappointed, but we still had plenty to do today.

Immigration Museum

The first thing we went to was the Immigration Museum at Pier 21, the main entry point for immigrants to Canada. Pier 21 was the Ellis Island of Canada. Pier 21 is right next to the cruise port terminal, in fact, we came into Building 22 so it was super easy to get to the immigration museum. The museum had exhibits on the history of immigration to Canada, the Pier 21 immigration process and an exhibit about the sinking of the Empress of Ireland, the worst maritime disaster in Canadian history.

Today we were in Bar Harbor, Maine (pronounced Baahh Haahhhbahh). Bar Harbor is know for its lobster but it is also near Acadia National Park.

Bike Tour

We did a bike tour through the park. The park came to be through large donations from John D. Rockefeller Jr. and a few other men. They bought up the land, preventing it from being developed. After cars were introduced to the island, Rockefeller built a road around the entire park and built separate carriage roads where no motorised vehicles are allowed. They were named carriage roads because horse-drawn carriages are allowed. Throughout the park, the car road and the carriage road intersect in multiple places and in those places, Rockefeller had bridges built to ensure that people on the carriage roads didn’t have to deal with cars. Our tour went on these carriage roads. I think it is best to just post a bunch of pictures and let them speak for themselves.