Melsea's USA/Canada Part 10

[melsea]

Melsea's USA/Canada Adventures Part 10

Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. 21st Sept

We got up a little later than we usually do 9am. We went to Cafe Bordeaux for our breakfast. We got off at around 10.45 and walked through the terminal building that had a number of stall type vendors with what looked like some very nice things. Then we saw a genuine Canadian Mountie and most people were having their photo with him, me included, I looked like a dwarf, he was very polite but ohh so tall. Moving on, I picked up a local map from the tourist information desk that was in the terminal and we started to make our way into town by walking on the shopping route according to the map marked as a solid blue line. We stopped at a shop near by where Bill bought a hat, I got a bag that has Prince Edward Island on it and a few fridge magnets. Charlottetown was a quaint quiet looking place and we looked in a couple more shops. We then bumped into Chris & Bruce, stopped a few minutes to chat & then went our separate ways. We came to a cross roads where the City Hall is and noticed in the same street an old looking style fire engine which was sitting outside the local fire station. As we approached we notice a number of people taking photos and a local fireman was chatting to them. The fire engine was built in 1924 and has been restored, it was a French engine of another age. We were able to have a look inside the station and we saw up on the wall high up lots of patch badges from fire stations from all over the world. There was also a t shirt that had the names of the firemen who lost their lives on 9/11.
They have a huge ladder engine with I think two massive hoses and the fireman chatting and telling with pride about their fire station and stories said it was an expensive piece of equipment and they had the only one of its kind there.
We found a place to have a drink and it had wifi. Bill manage to find a local radio station and apparently a lotto winners ticket was bought in Charlottetown, 100,000$
One thing that was self evident here was that the children's book Anne of Green Gables was written here, the writer Lucy M. Montgomery was from Charlottetown & the story was based here also. There is a shop of the name Anne of Green Gables where you could find everything and anything that has the name on it, also there is a museum. Think P&O did a tour about her and the place out of town where the house was that was featured in the books. I read the stories as a child and watched the tv adaptation of also.
Later on we walked back to the ship in wonderful sunshine and stopped by to have a lobster roll, very yummy.
We have been blessed with the most wonderful weather on this trip. The sail away was very tuneful and lots of flag waving and laughter. We had our free drink courtesy of our Peninsular Tier award. One champagne & one Elderflower Presse. So onwards we went into the sunset and the wind picked and the cool air replaced the warm sunshine, oh well it had to end sometime but we do have six days at sea on our homeward bound journey.