Upon departing the ship you are immediately blinded by a HUGE fiddle. And by "huge" I mean H-U-G-E! I had no idea at the time why this huge fiddle (I was corrected when I said it was a huge violin BTW) is doing in the Sydney harbor welcoming passengers from all over the world.
I knew, it turns out, next to nothing about the region.
It's called the Big Ceilidh Fiddle. And it turns out its nothing more than symbolic of Cape Breton's cultural heritage (Cape Breton is where Sydney is located). The towns folks thought this 55 foot tall fiddle would best represent the musical delights on the island. Of which, I did not partake.
The Sydney harbor was nice. It was the one harbor where you could get off the boat and actually take a reasonable walk into town.
My excursion in Sydney took me to the "Heart of the Island." The description of this excursion led me to believe we'd be making a couple of stops on the island to get a real idea of what the island had to offer visitors. But it turned out my excursion included an hour drive to a Scottish Heritage Village.
Don't get me wrong. The drive out there was beautiful. The fall colors were certainly in full color in Sydney. That added to sunshine and a drive a long Lake Bras d' Or. Which, it turns out, isn't a lake but an inland sea.
Now this Scottish village was interesting. It had several buildings that were replicas of what would have been around during the centuries. They had characters at each building telling you about their life during the time period the house or town building was a part of. Interesting.
My favorite building was this little church on the hill. Every time I saw it I had flash backs to Little House on the Prairie for some reason. (Pa was such a good cryer.)
My other favorite structure was the Black House. A house built out of stone, mud, and grass - it just amazed me.
Other structures were an old Mill, a black smith, a school with a swing and some officer houses. I, obviously, didn't live in the Scottish highlands in the 1800's nor did I live in Nova Scotia in the 1800's so I have no idea how accurate this little village was. It was cute, quaint, and I learned something. So I guess that's good enough for me.
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| The black smith was working hard on making a nail. Or so he said. |
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| The general store was stocked with some old goods. I love seeing old stuff like this. See the Hersey's cocoa in the bottom left corner? |
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| The woman in the officer house next to this well said she and her family had to walk about a mile for water. When I left the house, this well was sitting outside and I heard one of the other guys in our group say something to the affect of them having limited intelligence since the well was right outside. |
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| One of the character actors in one of the turn of the century houses. |
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| P-Dot was going to plow the fields if she could only find some horses to pull this plow. |
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| Instead she found herself a swing and enjoyed the afternoon. |
After walking a couple of blocks, I found the fudge store. All bets were off. I stood in line with two folks in front of me. My heart was set on some chocolate and peanut butter fudge. As I got to the front, I found out the last piece was sold to the couple in front of me. Damn them.
I left defeated, and hungry. That's when I stumbled across this little pub. I figured I might as well get some lunch. As I walked in to look around, there was the MomUnit and Bev having lunch. Apparently they had gotten off the boat and were told the best lobster roll around was at this pub. And seeing that the MomUnit's main goal this trip was a lobster roll - of which she hadn't found yet - I shouldn't have been too surprised to see them there.
We went back to the boat and spent about an hour wandering through the little shops they have on the pier.
One of the shops was a small shop for the fudge company I had visited above. They had peanut butter and chocolate fudge. I saw it. The couple in front of me bought it! Dammit!
I went on without my fudge.
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