Annapolis Royal is tiny, but it carries more history than many Canadian cities ten times its size. It sits on the Annapolis River near the Bay of Fundy, close to the early French settlement at Port-Royal and around the ground later fought over by French, British, Acadian, and Mi'kmaq communities.
The town works because the history is close together. You can walk Fort Anne, look across the basin, visit gardens that turn local settlement into landscape, and drive a short distance to Port-Royal, where the reconstructed Habitation gives early Acadia a human scale. It is not a place of big drama in the street; it is a quiet town where the past keeps surfacing.
Use Annapolis Royal as a slow western Annapolis Valley stop between Digby, Wolfville, and the Fundy shore. One good day is enough for the main sights, but it is a very good day if you like old forts, tidal landscapes, and small-town Nova Scotia.