Oh! Canada

Quebec City.  So French.

Shot north from Massachusetts to visit parts of Canada that have heretofore been unknown to me.  Spent three nights in charming Quebec City with gorgeous views over the Saint Lawrence Waterway.  Still a bit early in the season to be touristing – it snowed!  And yes, more wind.  But took the opportunity to view the Plains of Abraham and the Battlefields Park. 

Took a day to circle the Ile d’Orleans, one of the oldest centers of French culture in the New World.  And I thought I was leaving French behind when I left Europe!  The island is a center for agritourism.  Enjoyed a proper sugar shack with maple syrup poured over snow, leaving me buzzed for quite a while.  The next stop was a cidery where we tried several varieties of alcoholic apple mixed with currant, cranberry, raspberry….  The best acquisition was goose pate from a random antique shop with waterfowl.  I really can’t explain it.  Thank goodness there was a boulangerie just down the road.  The pate never made it out of the car.  

That's a lot of maple....

From Quebec, drove north and into New Brunswick where I was surprised by the time zone change.  Oops.  Really didn’t plan this leg of the journey well.  Still snowing.  Everyone seems surprised to see a tourist.  And being very watchful for moose.  But also drove through the longest covered bridge in the world – 390 meters!

Spent a day in Fredericton, NB.  The Beaverbrook Art Gallery is a mishmash and they know it.  But the do have two paintings by Winston Churchill, and an excellent exhibit of the textile art of Charlotte Glencross.

Really, longest covered bridge.  I have a video.

Pretty sure this is a sign you only see in Canada.

On to Prince Edward Island.  I am going to admit, without shame, that I have read everything Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote.  I love her novels, short stories, and diaries.  So naturally I had to come to the source of all things Anne of Green Gables.  Sadly, PEI is shut up tight until June.  So I took some lovely beach walks and toured the lighthouses.  The restaurants of Charlottetown are open, staffed with the graduates of the CIC.  I am culinarily sated, but I expect I’ll have to come back someday to see more.

The red sand beaches, with red-stained snow.

PEI