Q: I am going there on a cruise and only have about 8 hours.....I wish I had more time, but what are some things I can do with about 8 hours.... These answers are more than I expected-Has anyone seen the Titanic cemetery- Is it worth seeing?
A: I was in Halifax a couple of months ago. It's a very beautiful city, with a lot of nice corners, but if you'd ask me what there is to see in Halifax that you HAVE to visit, I'd struggle to come up with anyhting, except for the Citadel. The Citadel is interesting (and huge, which you wouldn't be able to tell from the outside); plus you can walk all around the ramparts and take beautiful pictures of the city. You can spend 1 to 2 hours easily at the Citadel. They also fire a gun up there sometimes, at noon, I guess, but it's not all that impressive. Then there's the NovaScotia parliament, which you can visit (if it's open). Th eonly really interesting rooms are the actual parliament chamber and a sort of assembly room opposite, as well as the library. You can spend 30 or 40 minutes in the building, but you can easily do it in 10 as well... Opposite the parliament there's a huge art gallery. You can easily spend several hours in there, but only if you are interested in that stuff. The nicest things are the restored harbour buildings, the so-called "Historic Properties", which house many shops etc. Have a look around them, as well as the shops and nice square adjacent to them (at the northern end of Granville Street). Closer to the cruise docks, there's the Alexander Keith brewery, which is a nice historic building. On certain days, at certain times, there's a large underground Farmers' Market nearby, but it is very very overcrowded. If you are not done yet with shopping, you can walk up Spring Garden Road, which has nice shops, and end up at the Public Gardens which is a small but very beautiful park. You can also see some impressive university buildings along the way. My suggestion would be: go to the Alexander Keith brewery and have a look and decide, if you want to pop in on your way back and for how long, then go up the hill and then keep north, in order to reach the Citadel; after visitng the Citadel, see the parliament and the shops (I think it's called Barrington shopping Centre?) and the Historic Porperties; by now you should have at least used up 4 hours, so now you can look at your watch and decide whether to spend more time at the Historic Properties, or head for Spring Garden Road for some more shopping, or go back to the brewery.... ********** EDIT I haven't seen the Titanic cemetary, but most of the people I have heard talking about it seemed to agree that it is a sort of semi-fake thing for tourists.