Every time I publish one of these travel blog posts I feel like I’m that family member who forces everyone to sit through a slide show from their summer vacation.

You know, like back in the 60’s when slides were the thing, and everyone had to sit in a dark room and watch as Dad clicked through slide after slide.

And most of those slides weren’t terribly good either.

Probably half of the audience fell asleep, and the other half desperately needed that cocktail in their hands.

So I apologize if that’s how you feel about these travel posts, but to be perfectly honest, I do these posts for myself.

I used to scrapbook all of my trips.

But I don’t scrapbook anymore.  I still miss it sometimes, but I also don’t necessarily want to continue to add to the 40 or so scrapbooks that will definitely end up in the landfill one day.

So, yeah, now I do these blog posts mainly so that I can go back and look at them later and reminisce about a trip we took.

Feel free to just skip over them if they just make you want to take a nap (or drink a cocktail), I fully understand.

And that brings me to the 2nd port of call on our recent cruise on the St. Lawrence seaway, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

As you can see, it was another absolutely beautiful day.  We had glorious weather on this trip.

I have to say that there wasn’t a whole lot to see here though.  We could have taken a shore excursion to visit the Anne of Green Gables house, but I never read those books as a child so that didn’t really interest me.  We also could have done a guided tour in a horse drawn wagon, but instead we pretty much did the same tour on foot on our own.

We walked through town admiring some of the historic homes along the way.

There were definitely some lovely old homes.

But here’s what stood out to me the most in Charlottetown, the locals were the friendliest, most helpful people I’ve ever encountered as a tourist.

We had grabbed a ‘self-guided walking tour’ map from the ship before disembarking, so as we walked along we had to stop a few times to refer to the rather unwieldy map.  Nearly every time we stood on a street corner with that map unfolded, a local would stop and ask if they could help us find something.  One guy was even just stopped at a stoplight in his vehicle when he rolled down his window and asked if we needed directions somewhere.

We could not possibly have felt any more welcomed by the locals.  It was truly remarkable.  Especially these days when tourists are definitely not welcomed everywhere.

We did eventually make our way to the Beaconsfield Historic House.  The house was built in 1877 as the residence of a wealthy shipbuilder.

And we happened to be just in time for a guided tour of the inside.

When the tour guide asked us to name the oldest thing in the dining room, I correctly guessed that it was the Christmas cactus in the window.  I knew those things could live for decades.  She said it was over 100 years old, although I don’t know exactly how they have a record of that.

The house was built with the most modern features of the time including central heating, gas lighting and running water.  Cold water, that is.  If you wanted hot water they still had to heat it on the stove and then carry it upstairs to the bath room.

I always enjoy seeing the kitchens in these old homes, not sure why that is since I don’t spend a lot of time in my own kitchen.

I’m not entirely sure whether or not those cabinets are original, but aren’t they gorgeous?

After touring the Beaconsfield House we moved on to walk around Victoria Park and the Prince Edward Battery, and then back through town towards our ship.

We had plenty of time left before we sailed though, so we then headed over to Lobster on the Wharf.

It’s the restaurant above with all of the red awnings.

Prince Edward Island is known for its lobster, so we figured we had to try some.  We ordered a lobster dip appetizer that was absolutely delicious.  We also ordered a lobster roll to share, and after one bite I decided that was not for me.  But Mr. Q polished it off and thought it was pretty good.  To be fair, I don’t particularly like fish or most seafood.

With that, it was time to sail away from Charlottetown and head towards our next port of call, Sydney, Nova Scotia.  If I haven’t put you to sleep with my travel posts, be sure to check back next week to read about Sydney!