Waverley Inn - Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada

582

05 October 2012

R. Linda:

By late afternoon we had gone back to the Waverley where we had some tea and freshly baked lemon cake in the front room. It was a welcome refreshment and a good time to sit and discuss the travels thus far. Neither of us could believe the Brewery Tour but we found it pretty funny after the fact. Because I was asked for more pictures of the Waverley and what it was like, I'll devote this post to that.

There is something about the Waverley Inn that as you sit in one of its rooms, you are seemingly transported back to a time of elegance and style, when men were dandies, in toppers and black tails, and women were cossetted in small-waisted dresses with bustles. How uncomfortable does that sound? Anyway, you sort of half expected Oscar Wilde to come through the front door, dressed in his flamboyant style, all smiles as he helloed to his friends and sat for a cuppa.

Even John Vanderbilt is all groomed to the nines getting ready to go to his club or for a visit to some town scion. The Waverley does that to you, as you sit back, sip your tea, close your eyes and dream.

Front Room Window

The front room

I apologise to the gent sitting on the couch but I wanted the picture of the room and wasn't about to tell him to move.

The front window has a table and two chairs below it where you can sit and chat over tea, but the man's wife was sitting there. At least I believed her to be such. Rather strange sitting arrangements, but that might be what 50 years of marriage does to couples. Who knows?

While I got our tea at the service table (just down from the check-in window), Tonya took a shot of the downstairs hallway. There is a wonderful antique hat and coat rack in the lower hall as are other antiques throughout.

 

That's part of me on the right getting our teas

By the time we had our tea, the older couple had left and we had the room to ourselves. Here are two shots from inside.

 

From inside the living room looking out at the hallway

The green marble mantel which Tonya tells me is faux but I couldn't tell if it was or not

While I have the photos out here are some more. Our room was on the second floor. Well second and a half floor. You get to the top of the stairs and if you make a left where all the Oscar Wilde books are living in a drum table, some rooms go toward the back of the house, but if you make a right you go up a few steps to the better rooms at the front of the house (much like Fawlty Towers has that little half up to the second floor), but that be considered the second floor as well (and the Waverley IS NOT Fawlty Towers).

                                                                                   

Top of the stairs from first floor to second

 

Second floor with Oscar Wilde books

Looking towards the back of the house on the second floor  

                                                                                

Our second-floor hallway

                                                                                         

Looking at the third floor

Speaking of Fawlty Towers do get the doors at the Waverley, they look so familiar.

                                                                                

Door to the Oscar Wilde Room

As we were relaxing below stairs sipping tea like we were millionaires, me friend and his wife arrived for a short cuppa and a hello. He had told me he would be in Halifax about the time we were arriving and we exchanged information. Since we were out all day as they were travelling into Halifax, we were going to meet for drinks, but time constraints for both of us prevented that thus, tea at the Waverley which was probably even better.

Shortly after they left us, we reluctantly trudged upstairs. It was lovely just relaxing and hard to leave. But we had to shower and change for dinner. Here are a few of Tonya's pictures of the room.

 

More pictures of the Vanderbilt Room

And a shot of the front.

I had arranged an intimate dinner for two in a private dining room at the Press Gang on Prince Street. I thought this would be just up Tonya's alley, an old historic building, fine dining, the works. Yee-ah I thought that.

Gabe
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