Page 154 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL EATING IBERIA

The Westin Nova Scotian in Halifax is the oppo-
site of dingy. I feel rich and pampered in my sun-
light-filled room filled with sleek modern furniture
and windows overlooking the Waterfront Board-
walk where two giant cruise ships are docked.
They’re so close I can make out passengers on the
decks. While today visitors come to Halifax by plane
or ship, in 1930 they arrived by train. Then called
the Nova Scotian, this was the only Grand Railway
hotel in Eastern Canada.
The hotel changed owners a few times, was
renovated, and re-opened in 1996 as The Westin
Nova Scotian. Amenities such as an indoor heated
pool, Jacuzzi, and fitness center were added, but
happily, the huge closets, built for the early guests
who would arrive with their steamer trunks, remain
intact, helping me feel a link with the hotel’s grand
past.
One thing I love about visiting new places as a
writer is that I’m often joined by a hotel staff mem-
ber who can fill me in on what’s worth seeing. Area
Director of Sales and Marketing Glenn Bowie joins
Lea and me at the hotel’s lobby restaurant. While
we gorge on lobster croquettes, Cajun-blackened
tuna, and blueberry cream custard with vanilla-
torched Acadian Maple Sugar, Bowie, who is also a
bass player and has his own band, tells me about the

band I’m about to join and accompanies us to
Bearlie’s, just a block away. I’m feeling very confi-
dent on my first International Music Tour.
So here we are. The musicians are terrific,
especially the four horn players. It’s not as
though they need a blues harmonicist to slay the
crowd –- they’re doing just fine. But I am called
up to play and the only thing I can hear is my
pounding heart. The stage is tiny, especially with
nine men crowding it, but I squeeze in between a
horn player and the bassist. They begin a slow
soulful instrumental with which I am not familiar,
but blues is blues. You don’t memorize it. You
play from the soul.
I close my eyes and play my heart out: long

154 WINE DINE & TRAVEL MAGAZINE 2020