Free Time in Charlottetown

A local tour guide came on the bus with us for a quick introductory look at Charlottetown, but it's a compact city of 30,000 people laid out logically on a grid so we could probably have done without him. We ended up at Government House for a look at the gardens and what most people liked the best were the chipmunks scampering up and down the trees. The bus driver thinks they're pests and that we are all deranged for finding chipmunks intriguing.

We wandered the city in company with the passengers of two cruise ships so it was shoulder to shoulder in the Anne of Green Gables Shop, a place to get out of quickly, and anyway we are going to Anne country tomorrow and the cruise shops will be gone.

It was nice not to be a cruiser and to belong (temporarily) to The Great George which is a fun hotel.
It's the red building photograph below.
Breakfast is served in the lounge sitting around on couches.

Back on the bus for an afternoon trip south to a little village called Victoria by the Sea which is normally closed at this time of the year, but Merryle persuaded several of the businesses to open for the mad Australians. Some of us were mad to see beautiful covetable antiques and no possibility of shipping them home.

Island Chocolates turned on a talk on chocolate by its young man chocolatier (he has a degree in it) and a slice each of chocolate tart for afternoon tea plus a little box of chocs each. (Except for the 3 guys who deserted us to go play golf - 30 golf courses in this tiny island!)

At one of the ubiquitous gift shops I tried on an Anne of Green Gables hat and pigtails - just getting into the swim of things for tomorrow. Picture below along with one labelled Beach House which was taken by accident but looks quite artistic. The lighthouse is a typical four-sided Maritimes edifice. The photos show what glorious weather we are having - a true Indian summer.

Also you can see what we all found interesting: unloading a ton of rock crabs at the jetty for the blokes and talking to a Maine Coon cat for the cat-lovers. He was a magnificent specimen and quite happy to pose for photos.

Free night for dinner and off we went to Sims Steak Restaurant with Anne, Bill and Sue. They didn't have a table for us but with a bit of swift talking ("we're from Australia, only here a few nights") we got in after a ten minute wait on a comfy couch. Good choice! It was fantastic! The funniest thing was as we ate our entrees of scallops, fish chowder and wedge lettuce salad we all practically purred with pleasure. Anne and I chose the wedge salad because it gets a good write-up on TripAdvisor - and deservedly so. However the chef wouldn't part with the recipe.

Main courses were good but rather an anticlimax after first course (and we were full as serves here are considerable. ) David disagrees: he says his 8 oz tenderloin is the best steak he has ever had - even better than the Barn.