Old Town Lunenburg
Lunenburg
A World Heritage-calibre planned British colonial town, its hillside crowded with red, yellow, blue and green wooden houses, and home port of the famous schooner Bluenose.
Lunenburg was founded in 1753 and is the best-preserved planned British colonial town in North America. It was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1995. Its grid of streets climbs the slope, and the brightly painted wooden houses and the distinctive “Lunenburg bay window” are instantly recognisable. Along the waterfront, the red Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic and the schooner Bluenose II, shown on the Canadian dime, are the town’s emblems. It is about 100 km (around 1 hour 15 minutes) by car from Halifax, and is often combined with Mahone Bay and Peggy’s Cove as a day trip. The Old Town itself is free to explore, and an overnight stay lets you see the town at dawn and dusk over the harbour.
Opening hours
All day
Nearby sights
- Knaut-Rhuland House Museum
- St. John's Anglican Church, Lunenburg
- Bluenose II
- Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic
- Ironworks Distillery
- Lunenburg Academy
- Blue Rocks
- The Ovens Natural Park