Our PERFECT day in Halifax, Nova Scotia! (Things to do + local FOOD)

After spending an amazing five days road tripping around Nova Scotia's famous Cabot Trail, we've headed southwest to Halifax, the largest city and capital of the province. And today we're going to squeeze in as much of the city's top sights and delicious eats as we can. Totally worthy of being the food of Halifax. Just like every good city adventure, we had to start our day by checking out a local coffee shop. We popped into Weird Harbor Espresso Bar to pick up some delicious flat whites. It's right downtown, but since it's a takeaway spot we're going to enjoy them while we walk. We have only been in Halifax since last night, but from the little that we've seen so far, we are really enjoying it. Its location on the water, plus its historical sites and its mix of older buildings and more modern buildings, plus just the churches scattered throughout downtown and even a cemetery, it's really reminding us of a smaller Boston. Halifax is located on one of the largest and deepest ice-free natural harbors in the world, and its waterfront has played an important role in the city's history, both with naval activity, dating back to when the British founded the city in 1749 and as an important commercial port. The harbor is also the site where the Halifax Explosion took place back in December of 1917. This is when a French cargo ship and Norwegian vessel collided, causing the French ship, which had explosive goods, to explode. This explosion destroyed the Richmond district of Halifax and almost 2,000 people were killed and about 9,000 were injured. Today the waterfront is one of the most popular things to see here in Halifax. There's a boardwalk that runs along it, which is one of the longest downtown boardwalks in the world at over four kilometers long. The waterfront has a bunch of different shops and restaurants, interactive elements, and some different statues and sculptures, including a very interesting one called The Way Things Were. It has three drunken lampposts, including two that are called Got Drunk Fell Down, which has one laying on the ground and the other standing over it, and a third called Fountain, which looks like it's peeing into the water. Apparently this is an ode to the mischievous behaviors that happen in cities. And besides walking along the waterfront, another fun thing to do is take a water taxi across the water over to Dartmouth. Unfortunately we don't have enough time to go over there today, but we do hear there are some pretty cool spots to check out. They have a guard in uniform when you enter. How cool! This place is way bigger than I thought. One of the most iconic structures right in downtown Halifax is the Citadel. As I mentioned earlier, Halifax was founded by the British in 1749, and they quickly realized they needed a fort to protect the area from potential attacks, mostly from the French, so they built the Citadel. The Citadel we're walking around right now is actually the fourth iteration of it. The first three were made of earth and timber, and this one is made of stone and was built in a star shape and was completed in 1856. But one thing all four have in common is that they never saw a battle. There are so many cool hidden nooks in the Citadel. You'll just see an open door, so you just wander down it. You go down a hallway, you see another open door, so you just go in there, and then bam! You're in this room just full of barrels. We're walking in the moat! So we're on the outside of the Citadel and you can walk through the wall. When I was packing the backpack this morning, I took the headlamps out. Should have brought them. This is kind of creepy. Something that happens every day at the Citadel is that they fire a cannon at noon, so we made sure to be here at noon to see it, but it's also just a good thing to know if you're visiting Halifax so you don't get startled by it. When we were in Boston, a cannon went off and we were not expecting it at all, and it scared the you-know-what out of me. So a 12-pound smoothbore muzzle loader, or a 12-pounder as we like to call it, is a smoothbore gun, so that means it's completely smooth on the inside that loads from the front. They're not very accurate. Just like a musket, the ball will kind of just bounce around on the inside and then get shot out at a random angle. This kind of artillery was not very useful for something like harbor defense, but that's okay because the Citadel wasn't built for harbor defense. We were built to defend against land-based invasions, and smoothbore artillery is perfect for that. But since there weren't any battles, the gun was used for other purposes, one of which being to alert soldiers of the time. Soldiers made very little money and couldn't afford a watch, so they relied on this gun firing at noon to know that it was the middle of the day, and it has been firing at noon every day except Christmas since 1857. I knew that was coming and it still scared the out of me. He's loading that thing up. These are hefty. So excited. It's like five pounds at least. For lunch, we are having donairs, which is the official food of Halifax. It's seasoned ground beef cooked on a spit and then shaved off, wrapped up in a warm pita bread, then topped with tomatoes, onions, and donair sauce, which is sweetened condensed milk, vinegar, and garlic powder. They were created back in the 70s by a Greek immigrant named Peter Gamalakos. He started selling gyros in his pizza shop and they weren't selling very well, so he swapped the lamb with beef and then he sweetened the sauce and they took off. You can now find donairs at just about any pizza shop in Halifax, but some Halifax locals we met in Newfoundland suggested we go to Tony's Famous Donair to try it, which has been around since 1976. I am so excited for this. Oh my gosh. We got the large just so everyone knows. It's an accurate description. They are huge. Big bite. That is so good. As you can see, this is super meaty and the meat has good flavor. It's like spicy, like spicy flavor, but not spicy hot. And then the donair sauce, I wasn't sure that I would like it because it's sweeter and it is sweet, but it's really good. It balances out that spiciness. Yeah, the flavor of the meat really does balance out well with the sweeter sauce. It has a nice kind of little tang to it. I feel a little bit of spice in the back of my throat, but it's not overpowering at all. And I just love how thinly sliced this meat is. It's so tender. Totally worthy of being the food of Halifax. There's so much meat on this. Oh my gosh. I think one of my favorite things about Halifax so far is just how many different types of experiences you can have, all within walking distance. You can wander around downtown, hang out on or by the water, explore an old fort, and walk around a beautiful garden. We're currently at the Halifax Public Gardens, which is a free Victorian style garden that was established in 1867, the same year as Canadian Confederation, so it's as old as Canada itself. We're here at the end of October, so the garden isn't as flourishing or popping with color as it normally would be, but we have found some flowers that are still very vibrant, and these have some hilarious names. This one's Crazy Fortini, Holy Hill Spider Woman, Alpen Sprinkles, Papa's Benji. There's Frizzy Lizzy. Yeah, they seem just so random. I love it. We googled them, they're real names. Yeah, they're real names. This one's called Josue G. Hercules. I swear, it sounds like they just had a contest who could come up with like the funnest names for these flowers. For all you Swifties out there. Funny names don't end honka honka and boogie woogie. Do a little boogie woogie. We've headed to the north end part of town to come to another spot that came very highly recommended to us, the Narrows Public House, and wow, this place is so beautiful. It's located in a restored 1896 Victorian home. It has tons of wood accents, a fireplace, and interesting decor on the walls, and it is just oozing with character. It's a more elevated pub experience, and many of their dishes are adapted from maritime cookbooks, and since we're at a pub, we had to get some fish and chips. It's huge, and we also got a dish that we have never tried before or even heard of before, a Dutch mess. It has braised haddock, cream sauce, lardon, wilted greens, chopped egg, and fried smashed potato. This thing looks like a mess, a delicious mess. The haddock is nice and flaky, the little lardon in here are crispy, fatty, and that cream sauce, oh man, so good. Everything is so hot and fresh too, like everything's steaming up the camera because it's just so steaming hot, like I feel like I'm getting a sauna right now from the fish and chips. I want to bathe in that cream sauce. This piece of fish is so beautiful, I don't want to mess with it. It's like a foot long. I know, but I'm gonna, oh man, holy cow, that breading is nice and thin, there's so much fish in there. So crispy, oh my god. This is like melting in my mouth, oh my god. We are a thousand percent stuffed right now, but we saw that they have sticky toffee pudding on the menu for dessert, and we knew we'd regret if we didn't get it. I think we're also gonna regret getting it, but oh my gosh, it smells so good. I haven't had this since we went to Scotland way back in 2018, so I am so excited for this. No words, no words. Yep, that was worth it, wow. We are officially bursting at the seams, Adam's not doing so hot right now. Like every step it's like jiggling, there's just so much food, I'm so full. But that was a phenomenal spot, thank you so much Megan for the recommendation. Even though all we really want to do is take a nap right now, we have one final adventure for the day, and it just feels like the perfect Canadian thing to go do. We're going to a hockey game. We've been to Canada so many times, but we've never been to a hockey game, and I am so excited. They don't have an NHL team here, but they do have a CHL team, the Halifax Mooseheads, and what's cool is they're playing the Moncton Wildcats, because we've been there too. Well, the Mooseheads didn't win, but it was such a fun way to end an amazing day here in Halifax. Let's go Mooseheads, more like let's go to bed. Should we root for the Halifax Mooseheads or the Moncton Wildcats? For lunch we're having Donair, I almost said Donair. We just learned last night that it's Donair, not Donair. When we were trying to look up how to pronounce the guy's name, never figured that out, but we did learn that we would have said the entire food wrong, so this is why we do research. And then that Donair sauce, I wasn't sure that I would like it, but they were created back in the 70s by a Greek immigrant named Pimer. Sorry, Peter.