24th September, 2018

Another sea day (back to the gym and the launderette) and then we arrived at Charlottetown, PEI, an acronym much in use (PEI ice cream, PEI potatoes, etc) and which it took me a while to appreciate means Prince Edward Island. Charlottetown is the capital of Canada’s smallest province and has two claims to fame – it was the host in 1864 of the first of several conferences that united Canada as a dominion in 1867 and thus is often referred to as the birthplace of Canada (though interestingly PEI only joined in 1873). The other thing that puts PEI on the map is Anne of Green Gables as the author, L M Montgomery lived on the island and based her stories in the area. The first one, published in 1908, sold 19,000 copies in the first 5 months.

It is definitely a popular stop with the cruise ships and for a small city (population 36,000), it has an astonishing number and variety of restaurants, no doubt catering for the demand. It has the now familiar grid street system with plenty of attractive buildings and featuring the Anne of Green Gables Chocolate Shop and the Anne of Green Gables Souvenir Shop of course.

There was also the usual fairly sober Anglican church versus the more flamboyant Catholic basilica.

The sun shone and we enjoyed the city, which has a lot of civic pride and plenty of the usual welcome that we have come to expect in the Maritime Provinces.

25th September, 2018

Our next stop was the Iles de la Madeleine, which are a 62-mile long hook-shaped archipelago of 16 islands in the Gulf of St Lawrence, part of the Province of Quebec. That, I regret, is about it. We did leave the ship and Val had a brief look at the few shops there were and I walked up the 185 steps to a look out over the harbour and the town. And then we went back to the ship. Not very exciting, but pleasant enough……