Playing on Royal Ground

Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island ranks as one of my favorite places.  On this year's visit, we did a ship sponsored tour of the Anne of Green Gables historic site and a lobster lunch.  What more can I want in a cruise ship port of call?  A visit to a real, if fictionalized, place and lobster as well as a stop at a fantastic preserve company?  And then the rest of the day to play in Charlottetown, with a stop at Cows for ice cream?

Actually, Charlottetown is one of the places I would consider living were logistics not an issue.  But I think one visa application process is more than enough for my lifetime, so Charlottetown will have to remain a stop on cruises or a dream land vacation.

We had an 8:00 a.m. meeting time for our tour, and after some issues with people on the wrong buses and misdirected tourists, we were on our way on a tour of the Island. (Aside, I missed the photos with the Mountie.  That has always been a highlight of the ship’s stops in Charlottetown.  There is something very romantic about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and for the last three visits to Charlottetown, we have had an opportunity to have ship photographs taken with the same really nice Mountie.  I do not know if I missed the time for taking pictures or if the Mountie was not there this year, but it was a little bit of the visit I missed.)  So we headed out to the North Shore and Rustico Harbor.  For those of you who have read L.M. Montgomery’s stories, the names of the places will all be familiar.  I do not know if Kevin Sullivan did research on PEI prior to filming his Anne of Green Gables mini-series, but from my tours of the Island, the general location shots were spot on perfect.  It’s a truly beautiful island, full of gorgeous sweeping views and unspoiled vistas.  I would love to take a land vacation of the Maritimes one day, spending as much time as I wanted in each place.

Rustico Harbor is nothing to speak of in and of itself, and no doubt only on the tour due to the Anne connection – as are most things on the tour I suspect.  So after a brief photo stop to check out the red clay beaches and the lighthouse, we were back on the bus on the way to Cavendish and Green Gables.  Cavendish is the real town upon which Avonlea is based, and from what I can tell, consists of a (ubiquitous) Tim Horton’s and Green Gables Golf Course -- PEI has at least a dozen golf courses, so if you are a golfer, it’s a popular destination in Atlantic Canada, at least according to our tour guide, who was a golfer herself.  Green Gables, and the surrounding farm, while a part of the Canadian National Park System, is actually a part of the Green Gables Golf Course.  But I was not there to play golf.  And it’s a good thing too.  Much like Mark Twain, I believe that golf is a good walk spoiled, and have been known to call the sport flogging.  But be that as it may.  This was my younger brother’s first visit to Green Gables and we noticed something, apart from the small rooms and low ceilings common to houses of the period, the glassware in the dining room was nearly identical to glassware our great-great aunt had in her house.  I am not sure if that glassware was original to the house, or merely a period replica, but it was a treat to realize a personal connection to the real place, fictionalized in one of my favorite books.  This visit, I spent far more time in the gardens surrounding the house than I did no my previous visit, though admittedly my previous visit was in the fall, when the gardens were at the end of the season and looking a little worse for wear, in that in-between phase which is not quite finished shedding the summer finery, and not in the bare, stark winter dress whites.  This time, they were an explosion of spring colors, with all the bulb flowers blooming and, something I had heard of but never seen in person, bleeding hearts!  They are beautiful.  If it were at all practical, I would use early spring flowers in my wedding bouquet and a spray of bleeding hearts would be a nice touch with the tulips and other bulb flowers.  I was born in either the wrong time of year or the wrong hemisphere.  My heart lies in the early spring, just as the world is shaking the crystalline beauty of winter with a riot of color poking up through the damp and drippy ground.  Yes, I am a winter, no matter what my beauty profile says.  Back to the gardens though.  I can truly see how they inspired not only the fictional Anne Shirley, but also her creator.  It was a lovely spot.

After a little bit longer than an hour for exploring Green Gables, we were on our way to new Glasgow (it is my experience that the entirety of Atlantic Canada embraces its Scottish heritage, not only Nova Scotia) and the Prince Edward Island Preserve Company, where we were scheduled to indulge in a lobster bake at the Café on the Clyde (the Clyde being the river over which the Preserve Company looks, and another nod to the Scot influence in all of Atlantic Canada).  The lobster was great, well-but-not-over-cooked, and served with plenty of drawn butter, but the highlight of the meal was the cream of mushroom soup served as an appetizer.  Yes, as amazing as it seems there are things better than lobster out there.  And for those in the group not partaking in lobster, there was a potato pie which was a crustless quiche made with PEI potatoes, unique in themselves, onions, eggs and sweet cream butter.  For dessert there was a housemade fruit pie of some sort, a berry pie I think.  It was good and sweet and the crust (my favorite part of any pie) was rich, flaky and near pastry perfection.  I should know, I had not only my serving, but my a third of my mother’s.  After the relaxing meal, which was finished with a cup of the house blend tea, there was time for shopping in the Preserve Company’s shop, where I found lovely things -- not only the preserves the Company is famous for, but tea and tea cups.  There was a fine and delicate whisper thin bone china teacup and saucer set decorated with poinsettias, which I would have loved as a gift for someone, but was too fine and too delicate for transport home.  So I settled for a large bag of Cavendish Sunset tea (a black tea blended with grenadine) and a catalogue from which to order jams and jellies.

After the filling lunch, and some scenic photographs along the banks of the Clyde, it was back on the tour bus to return to the ship.  When we arrived at the ship, my brother and I decided we had time to make a wander through town.  I had wanted to visit Moonsnail Soapworks, but they had moved and I never did find their new shop.  But I did get some pictures of the spring bulbs, finishing the season, in the gardens of the St. Dunstan Rectory, and I had a wander through a kitchen ware shop, idly furnishing my dream kitchen with the things without which I cannot live.  And then a stop in the Cows at the Pier, where I found a parody t-shirt for me and a post-card too funny to pass up for my dearest.  While we had wanted to get some Cowwy Potter ice cream, we were still too stuffed from our indulgent lunch, and too drowsy to wait in line, so my brother and I headed back to the ship for a lie-down before dinner and sail away.

As we finished dinner, Charlottetown was fading in the distance and we were heading to pass under Confederation Bridge, which links PEI to New Brunswick and makes, at least according to the National Geographic Society, Prince Edward Island a pennisula instead of an island.  It’s a bit of an argument of semantics as far as I am concerned, but the bridge is gorgeous and viewing it from underneath and the vantage point of the Crow’s Nest was an experience.  I would have been out on Sky Deck, but it was simply too cold and too windy to even consider being out on deck.

As the bridge disappeared over the horizon and the ship chugged its way to Gaspè, I had a shower and then fell asleep to the gently rocking motion.  French Canada was coming and I was looking forward to the two new ports of call.