Riders for Tour Atlantic meet in Halifax, Nova Scotia. We encourage participants to arrive a few days early to explore this historic port city. There will be an afternoon orientation session before the first riding day.
From Halifax we follow the Nova Scotia South Shore through Peggy's Cove and Lunenburg, a World Heritage Site and home port to the Bluenose II. The lighthouse at Peggy's Cove is a Canadian icon and the Bluenose is the famous sailing ship that's the image on Canada's 10-cent coin. From Lunenburg we cross through central Nova Scotia to the Annapolis Valley and a district immortalized by Ernest Buckler in The Mountain and The Valley, a landmark Canadian novel.
Our route goes through Annapolis Royal, once a French garrison town and later a British garrison during the colonial era of European settlements in North America. That naval port atmosphere is still there today in this historic village. We take the ferry from Digby across the Bay of Fundy to Saint John, where our route crosses a bridge over the reversing falls created by the Fundy Basin's world record tides.
Heading east after a rest day in Saint John, we go through Fundy National Park and visit the Hopewell Rocks, unique formations created by tidal erosion that also are known as the Flowerpot Rocks. We travel through Moncton and go past the Big Lobster in Shediac on the way to Confederation Bridge, the road to Prince Edward Island.
On the ride to Charlottetown there is a side trip to the birthplace of Lucy Maud Montgomery, whose Anne of Green Gables has become an enduring symbol of the Canadian spirit. We have a rest day in Charlottetown and time to visit the place where the Fathers of Confederation gathered to create the Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867. You could also stop by Cows, perhaps Canada's best known ice cream shop.
We leave P.E.I. by ferry to Nova Scotia and then cross the causeway onto Cape Breton, famous for its Celtic music, its hospitality and its scenery. You will see the scenery at its most spectacular from lookoffs along the Cabot Trail. We do a clockwise loop on the trail to reach Baddeck, where Alexander Graham Bell's summer home is now a museum and where Canada's first airplane, the Silver Dart, had its maiden flight a century ago. We'll have a celebration dinner in Baddeck as new and old friends head their separate ways.
