Last night we had to set our watches forward another hour. We are now far enough east that we are into another time zone, one that does not occur in the US.
As we steamed into Charlottetown (pronounced “charlatan”) on PEI and tied up to the dock, we were a bit dismayed to look out our window and see fog so thick that we couldn’t see the dock itself. Two minutes later it was noticeably brighter, and by the time we were ready to go up for breakfast it was a bright sunny day with clear blue skies. Perfect for a spin on the Bike Fridays!
Prince Edward Island has an amazing system of bicycle trails called the Confederation Trail. They are converted railroad beds and extend over the entire length of the island and then some – maybe 280 miles of rail trail all together, and just the main trail is about 180 miles end to end. We accessed the beginning of the trail just blocks from the ship terminal and followed it for nearly 8 miles out of town and into some countryside before returning back to town. The trail is very well maintained and we definitely want to return some day to cover the whole system. We could have continued much farther, but Charlottetown itself is a charming town and we wanted some time in town.
Anne of Green Gables – The Musical!
Charlottetown is the capitol of all things “Anne of Green Gables”. Neither of us ever read the books, but the area that inspired them is near here so it’s a huge tourist draw. Tami was on the hunt for some good chocolates (big surprise) and found some in the Anne of Green Gables chocolate shop. Not sure what that has to do with the books, but then, we never read them, did we!
Downtown Charlottetown
Some local characters
The town itself has a lot of older architecture that adds a lot of charm, and also a lot of restaurants. And lots of LOBSTER! So we had our first lobster rolls for lunch. Yum! We also had some delicious lobster chowder to start. Followed by some wonderful local ice cream for a complete lunch. Immediately followed by tasting of rum, whiskey and rye produced by the island’s distillery.
Lobster roll!
As the ship pulled out of Charlottetown we were treated to a fantastic sunset that had even crew members out taking pictures.
Must be from the show cast – catching a fast shot in front of the sunset.
For the second night in a row we also had the chocolate man come around. We are not quite sure what the deal is with him, he has a Princess badge, but doesn’t look like a crew member. In the evening he comes around giving out candy from a shopping bag or two full of chocolates and other sweets – kind of like Halloween in reverse. We watched the sunset progress through its glory over about an hour, then had to make sure we got dinner in time to catch the Seahawks game in the room since it’s a little chilly to watch up on the deck. Go Seahawks!
Leaving Charlottetown
