Charlottetown is the clleanest, friendliest port

Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island must be the cleanest, friendliest and most welcoming port I have ever visited. This island off the coast of Nova Scotia is in the Gulf of St Lawrence. I had read many of L.M. Montgomery's novels set on the Island and I am a reader who enjoys descriptions as much as anything, I had been to Prince Edward Island many times in my imagination. L.M.Montgomery's novels invoke such a sense of place, that when I first read "Anne of Green Gables" as a child, I thought Prince Edward Island was a fictional island based on the British Isles. I was surprised when I realised it was a an actual island the other side of the world. As with so many other ports on our trip, I never imagined I would go there, yet there I was!

Although the craft stalls were tempting in the port building, we were keen to explore the town. The area near the port is open park land with a board walk and maps and there was a horse and carriage waiting to take trips around the town. One interesting feature we noticed on the board walk were interpretation boards which were in English, French and also, what appeared to be Celtic and Canadian Indian. We discovered the "Anne of Green Gables" shop and the theatre, which has regular "Anne of Green Gables" shows. Among many other visitors we went to a little cafe and ordered cappuccinos, the young people serving were rushed off their feet. After refreshments, we found the former railway station and a building which had probably been a railway hotel. This reminded me of a former hotel on the coast of Essex in Brightlingsea, near where I live. Like the one on Prince Edward Island, the Brightlingsea hotel has been converted into flats. I took a picture of the building to compare it.

We went back to the port for a coach tour of the island. This tour would take us to the house that L.M.Montgomery visited regularly and described as Green Gables in her series of novels about the orphan child.