5 Best Photo Opportunities in Halifax

Nova Scotia is incredibly beautiful, and Halifax is full of great places to take pictures. Step outside the city, or even just to Point Pleasant Park (located in the south end of Halifax) and you'll find rugged beauty, while inside the city there are historic buildings, cobbled streets and all manner of visually interesting places to point a camera. Here are five of the best places to get snap happy in Halifax.

Classic Halifax Photo Opportunity: The Clock Tower on Citadel Hill

No trip to Halifax would be complete without a picture of the Old Town Clock, which is on Citadel Hill looking down over the downtown core toward the waterfront. You can get a great photo if you stand on the corner of Brunswick and Carmichael streets, but if you walk down Carmichael Street you'll get a great view framed by the various old buildings as you keep walking away from the Clock Tower. This Georgian monument has been keeping time in Halifax since 1803, and was built to deal with the tardiness issues of the local soldiers (Halifax has always been a military town).

Romantic Halifax Photo Opportunity: Peggy's Cove

Apparently the lighthouse at Peggy's Cove is the most photographed spot in Canada, and when you get there you'll see why, as it really is quite stunning. The classic red-and-white-striped lighthouse sits on the rocks overlooking the churning ocean. Peggy's Cove is a rugged little fishing village filled with brightly coloured wooden houses, many with lobster pots stacked high to one side of them, and wooden boats everywhere. It is a very pretty spot, indeed, but beware of climbing the rocks close to the wild ocean-several tourists have been washed off the rocks in recent years and were unable to be saved. Peggy's Cove is about a half-hour drive from downtown Halifax, and you'll find plenty of gorgeous scenery along the way to photograph as the winding coast road (known as the Lighthouse Route) takes you through scenic bays and fishing villages).

Family Fun Photo Opportunity: The Wave Sculpture on the Boardwalk

At the bottom of Sackville Street, just before you hit the harbour, you'll find a 12-foot-high cement wave sculpture that kids just love to climb all over and play around. Having the family pretending that the wave is about to come crashing down on them makes a fun and quirky picture. Just across from the sculpture is a rather great wooden pirate ship playground, and if you carry on walking down the boardwalk, you'll find other great photo opportunities, such as the Tall Ship Silva and various other visiting ships. Also, right at the end of the boardwalk are the cobbled streets and most of Halifax's oldest buildings, which make up the Historic Properties.

Scenic Photo Opportunity: The View from the Dartmouth Ferry

Hop on the Dartmouth Ferry for the best views of the Halifax waterfront and downtown core. The ferry leaves every 15 minutes on weekdays and costs just $2.25 (it gets you a 90-minute transfer, which allows you enough time to get to Dartmouth and have a walk around before coming back). You'll get unsurpassed views of the city from the water, and you'll get to see how busy the working harbour is when looking out from the Dartmouth side.

Best Creepy Photo Opportunity: The Halifax Graveyards

Being an old city (Halifax was established in 1749), there are lots of graveyards, and some of them are beautiful, filled with ornate gravestones and sculptures, and surrounded by ornate wrought-iron gates and fences. The Fairview Cemetery, in the north end of the city, isn't particularly ornate but is best known as being the burial place of more than 100 victims of the Titanic disaster-the memorial to them there is very moving. The Old Burying Ground, which can be accessed just off Barrington Street at Spring Garden Road, has the oldest gravestones in the city (it was used as a burial ground from 1749 to 1843). The Camp Cemetery on Robie Street was formed after the Old Buying Ground became full, and has several notable Nova Scotians buried there, including statesman Sir Joseph Howe and Alexander Keith, politician and brewer.