Charlottetown, PEI – small place, big fun

We took two excursions today. The first took us to the Green Gables Heritage Place and the Cavendish Cliffs Oceanview Overlook in Prince Edward Island National Park, which are both on the north side of the island. Charlottetown is on the south side, so we also got to enjoy scenery in both directions, starting with downtown.

Province House (Birthplace of Confederation)
St. Paul’s Parish Church
It’s Scarecrow Month in Charlottetown!
Old county jail, now a bar/restaurant

We reached the Green Gables historic site about 45 minutes after we left the port; there’s a visitor centre, the house where Lucy Maud Montgomery’s cousins lived (she was a frequent visitor there, and they helped inspire her to write Anne of Green Gables), a couple of walking trails, and the inevitable gift shop. We had a bit over an hour there, which wasn’t quite enough to see everything.

Green Gables
Lego Green Gables
The real house
Crow on the Haunted Wood trail
A celebrity cemetery!
Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Grave
Back in the Haunted Wood
Mink on the boardwalk
Lovers’ Lane Trail

Our next stop was the Ocean View Overlook at the Cavendish Cliffs area of Prince Edward Island National Park.

Cavendish Literary Festival
Cavendish Cliffs Oceanview Lookout
Cavendish Cliffs
Herring Gull on the Rocks
New London Lighthouse
Lots of lobster traps
Maybe next time
Mussel farming
Our guide said these were oystermen
Llama guarding other livestock
More scarecrows (at the Lobster Pot at the Port)

We had lunch on the ship, which might have been a mistake because our second excursion, a solar-powered pedal bus excursion through downtown Charlottetown, took us to two bars: The Old Triangle for potato skins, sweet potato fries, and beer, then to 1858 Caesar Bar for chicken wings and other adult beverages (their speciality is a Caesar, which is a Bloody Mary with Clamato juice – not on either of our diets!). We also drove by the beach at Victoria Park. But it wasn’t a good excursion for photography because the rain shields were deployed.

Our afternoon sightseeing vehicle

This evening, Mike Pendergast came back for more island music during cocktail hour; he was, again, delightful. He told me he deliberately doesn’t have any social media presence, but his son, who is also a musician, does: Shane Pendergast.

Our after-dinner entertainment was a local storyteller and comedian, Patrick Ledwell. He kept us laughing with PEI stories!

I would like to have had more time to explore Charlottetown and PEI, but we’re off to our next port, Pictou, Nova Scotia.

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