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A European Stroll - Zurich, Switzerland - Day 1

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Zurich: Day 1 Had a smooth flight and landed early into Zurich. Met our cruise director Marcelo, who is awesome! Since we had time to wait before our room is ready, we decided to go to the one place where it would make me super happy…yep, you guessed it…the home of the Lindt Chocolate Factory!! Pictures just don’t do it justice! It’s an incredible place. After a few hours of heavenly delights, we returned back to the hotel with a full bag of chocolates to take home, and ready for a much-needed nap before the Welcome Reception that evening. The main entrance of the Lindt factory. Tickets to the tour. You walk through in your own and have the option of a hand-held device to listen to various facts. Omg! This was an incredible sight to see! The smell of chocolate engulfed us as we entered the building...and yes, that's REAL chocolate! Composition of chocolate. Look at that dark chocolate one. Wow! I was in heaven…you could take a spoon and pull the handle to sample melted chocolat...
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A European Stroll - Switzerland to Amsterdam - a Prelude

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Usually, I write about my strolls in and around Nova Scotia, but recently, in April 2023, my husband and I took a river cruise trip of a lifetime.  It was such an amazing trip, which involved lots of strolls, that I decided to share our adventures! To share a little background as to one of the reasons we embarked on this incredible trip, we need to flip back a year.  In January 2022,   my husband was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer.  It was a very stressful year for our family, so my husband and I really needed some down-time to try and forget about chemo, treatments, CT scans and the stress, even for just a little while.  I had heard about river cruising from work colleagues and when our local Automobile Association hosted an info night featuring AMA Waterways, we jumped at the chance to attend! Wow!  We weren't disappointed.  The presentation was amazing, and it also made me realize how much I missed Europe. Having grown up in Lahr, Germany, when ...
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Lunenburg Legacy

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Our travels one August Saturday led us to the beautiful seaside town of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Reknown for the Bluenose Schooner (as seen on the backside of the Canadian dime), Lunenburg is a picturesque town of approximately 2,300 residents. It has quite an interesting history.  The Acadians settled into the area between 1630 and 1689.  Logging and agriculture were prominent trades.  About a century later, the British established the area for protestants, from select areas of Europe, and granted "land lotteries" for them upon their arrival in 1753.  By the 19th century, seagoing trade started becoming more prominent. In 1921, a fishing and racing schooner was built and launched by a company called the Smith & Rhuland Shipyard.  It was called the Bluenose .  It won every international fishing series race over a 17-year span and created for itself quite a reputation.  The Heritage dedication to the Bluenose During WW2, L...
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A Grave Discovery!

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On my August 8th stroll, I turned right down South Street, then left onto South Park Street (not to be confused with the South Park Street TV show!  lol). It was hot and humid, and I was really hoping for a bit of a breeze to cool me...but alas, it was not meant to be, so I walked on.  I heard from some people that it's not normally really humid in Halifax, so I just chalked it up to the unusually hot summer we were experiencing.  Nevertheless, despite the humidity, I never realized how much excitement my morning walk would bring me. As I turned onto South Park Street, on my right I noticed a cemetery.  Now, I normally don't make it a habit to wander through cemeteries (sudden thoughts of creepy, scary movies come to mind), but the sign on the entry fence invited me to check it out, so in I went.  The entry was via a driveway, which wound its way up to a church (which was under renovations) on the upper right of the hilly proper...
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A New Beginning

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With every beginning comes new discoveries.  That's how I thought of our move to Nova Scotia.  It's a scary thought packing up, purging your household and saying goodbye to friends and family.  A tough decision, to say the least! True...a lot of my family live in Cape Breton and I was born there, but I didn't grow up there.  My dad was in the military, so we moved when I was quite young, and I ended up spending some great years in Lahr, Germany.  But that's a story for another day... When we discussed moving here, one of the things we wanted to do was travel and explore the province.  I had come to Halifax in May of 2019 for a conference and happened to come across the boardwalk in the downtown area. I found that walk really relaxing, exciting, and beautiful...and so, that's where we went for our first weekend stroll... The boardwalk starts off at Pier 20 (or Pavillion 20 as the sign says) which is next to ...
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Why 20-Minutes?

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Hi everyone!  Welcome to my first Blog! You might ask, "20-minute Stroller?  What's with that?"  Let me give you a bit of background, since this is the first post and you'll need some context of why I decided on the name. In July 2019, my husband, Jack, and I, moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia.  We lived in Victoria, British Columbia for almost 30 years, but felt that for economics, the time had come for us to move to my home province.  I was born in Nova Scotia...most of my family still lives here, so it made sense to move back to the province where I was born.  But...I actually never lived here! I was born here, but my dad was in the military, and we moved away when I was very little. That's a story for another day! I was offered a job here, which I really like, but I also enjoy being outside.  When I worked in Victoria, I would go for a stroll with a co-worker every morning for our "chill pill" - it gave us our much-needed breathe of fres...
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