Anyway. Prince Edward Island is known mainly as being the home of Anne of Green Gables - or so it would seem from all the advertising. It's also known for its beaches, though, as the island is so small that much of it is coastland. We drove much of the way round the scenic routes the island has to offer.
The dirt here is reddish, tinting the sea.
Your new desktop background. You're welcome.
My skin blends in well with the white walls!
We weren't there at the right time for two musicals they perform in Charlottetown, either: "Anne of Green Gables" and "Anne and Gilbert". Nor did we visit the Anne of Green Gables museum, or the Shining Waters family fun park, or buy any Anne of Green Gables chocolates.
We also didn't feel the need to stay at one of the many Anne-themed accommodation options:
- Anne Shirley motel and cottages
- Anne's windy poplar cottage
- Shining Waters country inn and cottages
- Kindred Spirits country inn and cottages
and, my personal favourite, because Kindred Spirits had evidently already been taken: - Bosom Buddies cottages and suites
We made sure to visit Charlottetown, the island's capital, and saw some cool buildings. On our way there, we also stopped at a cool, quaint place called Skipper's Cafe for lunch, and in keeping with the harbour theme shared a fish burger and a lobster panini between us. Mmmmm!
Charlottetown city hall
A certain building in Charlottetown.
Charlottetown was preparing to party like it's 1864 when we were there, less than a week out from Canada Day on 1 July. Apparently, in 1864 or thereabouts, the good people of Prince Edward Island invited representatives of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton (and perhaps some others) to talk about their future as colonies, and whether they should confederate. The other Canadian colonies crashed the party, as you do, and they had a big week-long party of leisurely luncheons leading on to sumptuous suppers, where the delegates would engage in a bit of dancing, after which they all retired to a lavishly appointed drawing room (or perhaps a library) where the nitty gritty of the confederation proposals were discussed into the wee hours. Prince Edward Island didn't join the confederation until much later (perhaps out of spite for their party being crashed, the plaques didn't specify why), when they had incurred a rather large debt for the construction of a railway.
Outside the art gallery - human for scale.
A cool-looking hotel.
We also saw some statues here. Can anyone tell us what the bottom two languages are on this plaque?
John with the figure in question.
You'll just have to take our word for it (or google it), but Prince Edward Island truly is a land of vivid green plants, sparkling blue water and red dirt. As L.M. Montgomery described it: an island of ruby, emerald and sapphire!
We surmised that the island must get a lot of rain for the countryside to maintain its verdant hue. Unfortunately, we didn't take any photos depicting these bright colours in the first two days there, and on our last day and a half in the province, we were blessed with steadily pouring rain. Therefore the closest shot we got is more stormy in nature:
We still persisted in our last scenic drive, though, and were rewarded with a reminder of our homeland.
It's a sign!!
The biting insects found it pretty exciting too!
Then it was the loooong drive back over the bridge connecting Prince Edward Island to the mainland - 10-12 minutes long, in fact!
And end of the blog post is here.
I tried to post a comment the other day but it doesn't seem to have stuck... Hmmm... Anyway, I think the two bottom languages are:
ReplyDelete- something Celtic like Irish
- indigenous Canadian?