6 Best Sights in Wolfville, South Shore and Annapolis Valley

With award-winning vintages and sigh-inducing Fundy views, a stop at Domaine de Grand Pré is doubly pleasing. Vineyard tours and tastings are offered twice daily, at 11 am and 4 pm; reservations are not required (but call ahead to confirm they are happening on any given day). They take about 45 minutes, but you'll likely want to linger on the picturesque 10-acre property, so plan to have a meal at Le Caveau Restaurant or sip a glass of wine under the pergola. Live Music under the Vines events take place on certain evenings in July and August, weather permitting, and other events are detailed on the website.

Temporary exhibitions here are devoted to established and up-and-coming artists, and there's a permanent collection strong on maritime and Inuit art, works on paper, and works by women artists. It amounts to more than 3,000 works, though not all are on display.

Added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 2012, this site commemorates the expulsion of the Acadians by the British in 1755. The tragic story is retold at the visitor center through artifacts and an innovative multimedia presentation that depicts Le Grand Dérangement from both a civilian and military perspective. The latter is shown in a wraparound theater that's modeled on a ship's interior. A bronze statue of Evangeline, the title character of Longfellow's tear-jerking epic poem, stands outside a memorial stone church that contains Acadian genealogical records. The manicured grounds have a garden, apple orchards, a duck pond, and, appropriately enough, French weeping willows.

You'll see one of the best natural harbors on the upper Bay of Fundy and some of the highest tides anywhere in Hall's Harbour, a small community about 30 km (18 miles) northwest of Wolfville via Kentville and Highway 359. Go for a walk on a gravel beach bordered by cliffs, try sea kayaking, or seek out the artisans whose studios open here during summer months. The small Red Fish House Museum, with local artifacts, is open in summer.

These 6-acre gardens are devoted mainly to indigenous plants from the Acadian Forest Region. Nine native habitats are displayed, and there's also a medicinal and food garden, a beautiful walled garden, and a conservatory.

Many Wolfvillians will tell you that the best show in town is watching swifts—aerobatic birds that fly in spectacular formation—descend on the Tufts Centre's oversized chimney at dusk on summer evenings. The venue is named in honor of the late ornithologist, author, and longtime resident who published Birds of Nova Scotia in 1961. The illustrated tome is still considered the bible for birders in the province, and Tufts had lots of material to work with because Nova Scotia, being located on the Atlantic flyway, is an important staging point for migratory species. Birders can tick several off their "must-see" list without straying too far from Wolfville. Each summer as many as half a million sandpipers and plovers flock to Evangeline Beach near Grand Pré to gorge on the Minas Basin's nutrient-rich mudflats before continuing nonstop to South America. Winter, meanwhile, brings hundreds of regal bald eagles to Sheffield Mills, northeast of Kentville.