Day 4 Nova Scotia: an amazing fall smorgasbord!

Saturday, October 11

Saturday was Sarah’s first full day in Nova Scotia, and of course Elisabeth had Plans for us!!

I feel like this day ended up being the perfect mish-mash day, or, as noted in the title, an “amazing fall smorgasbord”. I LOVE these types of days on vacation. Of course, it can be fun to devote a whole day to just mostly one big ticket item (like Cape Split!), but it’s also great to have other days where you do a little of this and a little of that. Somehow it can make the day feel longer!

First up though was another dining room breakfast. This time I had great company! And a different table. 🙂

After our tea/coffee, omelets and conversation, we gathered our things and set out to walk the ~1/2 mile down the street to the heart of Wolfville. It was a pristine fall morning- not cold at all, just perfectly pleasant.

We happily walked along past pretty leaves. You already have heard that Wolfville is a “small town”, so it was very charming (and safe).

Sarah did make a few mentions that she would have loved to run here. 😥However, she also noted how lovely it was to take a slow, relaxing morning and not have to worry about fitting in time to run! As usual, there are two sides to every coin. 🙂

We passed this cemetery with the most stunning leaves. Stay tuned- I have some even better angles from the other side, coming up in a minute.

Our destination was Charts Cafe, to meet up with Elisabeth and her BFF, Joy!

Sarah and I had a good laugh as we somehow managed to miss the street we needed to turn left onto…We failed at our one attempt to navigate Wolfville on our own, lol. Seriously, from the Tattingstone the directions could not have been simpler: “Go straight, turn left once, arrive.” 🤣🤣 Sarah did warn me she was directionally challenged. I am the one who had been to Charts before, though, so this one was on me….

On the way, I had to get Sarah’s pic on the marathon course!! (They were setting it up for Sunday morning.)

After a brief backtrack, we arrived on time at Chart’s and met up with Joy and Elisabeth. This was exciting! We all read about and hear about this infamous “Joy” person allllll the time… and we finally got to meet her!

Man, Elisabeth is lucky. Joy was AWESOME. I loved her instantly. I am legitimately envious that Elisabeth has such a wonderful best friend (locally) with whom to share her life!! I want a Joy. 🤣🤣

We had tea/coffee and chatted for almost an hour and a half. Super fun!

On our way out, it was Sarah’s turn for a “Smile, You’re in Wolfville!” pic. 🙂

We parted ways with Joy, who was headed home to her family (and to enjoy her wedding anniversary, which was Saturday too!).

Sarah, Elisabeth and I set out to the next destination on our itinerary- the Wolfville Farmers’ Market. It was just a very short stroll from the cafe.

This farmers’ market was GREAT! It felt more like a “fall farm market” than a traditional farmers market. Much of it was indoors, in this very cute building with wooden ceilings and lights strung about. It smelled amazing, thanks to the food stalls. Local soaps, candles, apple cider and other good smelling things were also mixed in.

I didn’t seem to capture many good pics of the various vendors’ goods, but this was so fun. It gave me (more) Hallmark movie vibes. We wandered around for quite a while looking at the miscellaneous gift items (soaps, decor, jewelry, artwork, etc.). I was very tempted to buy a cute ceramic bowl, but was nervous about getting it home in one piece. Sarah did buy some local made soap for her husband.

Just outside the farmers’ market was the same cemetery I mentioned above. The sun was shining our way, though, and it made for these killer views. Seriously, do these not look like they were AI generated or something? I feel like they belong on one of those Microsoft screen savers. Just our iPhones!

The leaves had dried out a bit now, compared to the other day on our Cape Split hike (it had rained the night before), so we walked through the cemetery for a dose of “crunchy leaves”. Another one of Elisabeth’s famous shoe shots! 🙂

Up next, we went back to the Wolfville sign to get a pic of all of us together. I got to this sign multiple times during my visit, but it’s one of those places that you can’t really get enough of! The view from there is just so pretty.

We lingered briefly here just enjoying the day. And WHAT A DAY it was. The temperature was just right.

Next we moseyed over to the main street in Wolfville, which is lined with pubs and cute shops, mostly. (Plus a grocery store, banks, etc – the usual.) It’s a very cute area!

We popped into several different “gift shop” type shops. They were adorable!!

Only notably missing was a great stationary store for SHU. 😉

We then continued our tour of Wolfville with a walk through Acadia University’s beautiful campus (where Elisabeth did her Master’s). It’s located literally off the main “downtown” of Wolfville and would be an idyllic place to go to school!

It was quiet, being both Saturday and a holiday weekend. (Canadian Thanksgiving was coming up on Monday, October 13.)

The campus had trees for days and it was gorgeous.

Look at these red leaves!!! 🤩

We walked and talked and marveled at the scenery and the sunshine and it was perfection.

Elisabeth took us inside this beautiful building with this stunning reading/ study room. (Sounds like it can be used for events and recitals sometimes, too. So pretty.) The piano in the back corner was actively being tuned as we were there. 🙂

We walked through this Conservatory…

and then out to these amazing botanical gardens! Just right there, for free, a short walk from Wolfville’s main street. Highly recommend.

It was a photographer’s playground, that’s for sure. We saw a large family having family pictures taken by some other trees.

We wandered the little trails.

And then Sarah and I had a prom photo taken. 🤣🤣

Everything was beautiful and once again I’m coming up short of different descriptive words to accurately describe how lovely this campus and our walk was.

Eventually we circled back to the main street and made our way to Elisabeth’s parked car. First though, we stepped into the library (located right there, in the parking lot basically), so Elisabeth could grab her big stack of holds.

How fun to glimpse her cute little library!! Elisabeth is a big reader, and she talks about her library a lot, so I’m glad I can now envision it.

We drove back to Elisabeth’s for a brief reset. Elisabeth packed up a charcuterie spread and some sparkling waters for us to have as a picnic lunch at our next stop, the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Grand Pré.

Just a short drive from her house, we found the most INCREDIBLE views. Seriously, the photos below do not even remotely do this view justice. The camera just can’t capture the multiple layers in the distance.

We had the whole place to ourselves, essentially, and sat down for a delicious picnic.

This spread was my jam. I loved every single thing in this container. I am a huge fan of cheese and crackers, the jerky was amazing, more energy balls, Lufthansa chocolates (courtesy of John), fresh fruit and nuts!

It was windy, but comfortable temperature wise. Fortunately the picnic table was shielded by some shrubs.

Zooming in a little, this is what our view really looked like:

After lunch, we drove down to the parking lot and set out to walk the grounds of Grand Pré. Yet another fall wonderland.

Sarah and I were shocked to see bald eagles (numerous!) just flying around!! This is a rare and exciting sight for us, despite them being our nation’s bird. So cool and majestic!

Elisabeth was not as excited, as apparently they are much more commonplace here. 🙂

After completing our loop, we headed back to Elisabeth’s house. We had already walked a lot, but Elisabeth had yet another idea for a local scenic walk. She asked if we wanted to do it or just relax, and Sarah and I both opted for another walk. We can’t do fall hikes with peak leaves just any old day!

This next walk was literally right out her back door, on a trail right from her backyard. Crazy!!

We didn’t have an extra person to photograph us all together, so here we are in various configurations of pairs. 🙂

This walk took us maybe ~40-45 minutes and was stunning. Can you believe that much of this route is how Elisabeth walks her kids to school?! (which they did when younger basically every day, even in the snow; now that they’re older, not as often). It’s so “Anne of Green Gables!”

The walk was actually rather hilly, and the temperature had warmed up enough that I even stripped off my vest and my heart rate got up a bit. This one felt like an actual moderate workout!

Once we looped back to her house, Elisabeth took us back to the inn to have some downtime and get ready for the evening. I think I puttered around working on a blog post for a bit, drank some tea in my very pretty hotel room, and then took a leisurely shower.

We had dinner reservations at 7:30 at Le Caveau, a fancy restaurant. Sarah and I wanted to treat Elisabeth to show her our gratitude for her impeccable hosting. (And for feeding us and driving us around for many days!)

Elisabeth returned to pick us up a bit early so we could have a little pre-dinner fireside chat. The Tattingstone has this great outdoor area for happy hours. We had it mostly to ourselves. (We did not partake in happy hour, but enjoyed the fire anyway.)

The restaurant was a short drive away.

It was the perfect choice! Classy and cozy.

This pic below cracks me up… what on earth were we so seriously scrutinizing on the menu?! 😅😅

Here’s a better one. 🙂

Elisabeth and I both had the Confit Duck Papardelle, and Sarah had the Pan Roasted Arctic Char. All delicious!

I’m so glad we did this. It felt truly special and festive.

With our later reservation, it was, of course, on the later side by the time Elisabeth got us back to the inn. Maybe 9:45? She had church early the next morning, so we said our good nights.

But! Sarah and I, leaning into our eastern and central time zones, respectively, ended up having a little more gas left in the tank.

On the way back from dinner, Sarah jokingly (I thought) said something about wanting to go to the pub for a nightcap, like she has seen Ivan and I often do on our trips. I laughed and assumed she was joking, because if you know Sarah, well, she’s not exactly a night owl. 😆

Well, after we got out of the car, she said, “I actually wasn’t joking…I’m not even tired yet!” I was like, OH!! You were serious!!! Oooohh, yesssss!!!! We’re so doing this!

We checked the map and saw it was only a 0.5 mi walk, if that, back to The Library, a very cute looking college pub down the street. We changed into jeans and set out on foot, like two young college kids and not two 40-something moms. 😅

Here is photo evidence of us closing down the bar! (Not true 2 am bar time, don’t worry- they closed at midnight.)

There was live music upstairs but we got a spot on the quieter yet still active lower level. We each had a beer and enjoyed some great conversation.

And then we finally walked back at midnight and called it a night, with a relaxed/ low key morning to look forward to on Sunday.

THIS WAS SUCH A GOOD DAY!!!!

Don’t miss Sunday’s adventures coming up, which were out-of-this-world. (Seriously, other planet-like. 😉 You’ll see why.)