Prince Edward Island

We love this province!!!!  Everyone should visit here at least once in their life!  We would love to return and do a cycling holiday here - who wants to join us??  There are under 150,000 people in the whole province so it never seems crowded.

Our top ten of PEI in no particular order of preference:
1. The coastal scenery - lighthouses and red soil cliffs and sand dunes and long sandy beaches.  Each coastal community has its lovely little marina filled with fishing boats and stacks of lobster traps.

PEI National Park

North Rustico, PEI

2. Inland scenery - rolling hills with green forests and fields of corn, wheat, potatoes (PEI 'd claim to fame) and hay (with large round bales dotting the fields), host to neatly painted houses and old barns.  Each community has its lovely picturesque church, usually white with black trim.

potato barn - low and some are partly underground for cold storage in summer and protection in winter.

Cynthia and Lester Stubbert - lots of toe tapping!

3. Ceilidhs - Celtic music concerts, often held in small community halls or churches, with great fiddle music, singing and step dancing.  We went to one in Brackley Beach community hall (thanks, June and Brian), featuring a dynamo named Cynthia MacLeod who literally bounced in her chair as she played the fiddle. 
4. Lobster - tried a lobster roll for the first time. What a taste treat - a bun filled with lobster, a little mayo and chopped spinach.  Yum!  Tonight a 'lobster dinner', a Maritime Canadian tradition with lobster plus all you can eat seafood chowder, salad, mussels and desssert.  Double yum!

lobster

roll and PEI potato salad - a taste treat!

5. Friendly people - both Islanders and those 'from away'.  Tonight, we met a couple in line for the lobster dinner and they invited us to join them at dinner.  Lovely retired principal and special education teacher from just outside Toronto.  Also, the campground owners are wonderfully friendly ad helpful as well as people we have met on fishing docks, in restaurants and

6. A special mention to an extra friendly islander who is from away - we stopped to buy veggies from a farmhouse and ended up chatting with the lady for a long time about PEI, what is great about it and how it could be better.  She and her husband moved from Ontario to PEI a few years ago to escape stress and grow veggies plus sunflowers for seed sales.  Could have chatted all day!

7. A swim in the Gulf of St. Lawrence st Brackley Beach, part of PEI National Park - warm water, a long sandy beach backed by sand dunes.  Busy beach!
8. North Cape - the north western tip of PEI with its lighthouse, red cliffs and rocks plus a wind farm with different types of windmills for research.  Waves from Northumberland Strait meet waves from Gulf of St. Lawrence.

9. Chatting with lobster fishermen on the opening day of the season as they loaded up their traps to put them out at sea. Shon chatted with the fisheries officer then the brother of one of the boat owners and learned lots about lobster fishing - how to bait a trap, how many traps are allowed, how the traps work, etc.
10. Antique and artisan shops that dot the highways and byways of the island.  Fun to browse but we can't buy everything!!!
If there is a God of cyberspace, thanks for saving this entry when I thought it was lost!!!  Last photo is in another entry because this disappeared from my screen!