Prince Edward Island 2008 Trip Blog - Day 4 (Afternoon)

DAY 4 (AFTERNOON)
AVONLEA VILLAGE

CAVENDISH BEACH

ORBY HEAD

& RUSTICO


In the early afternoon on Thursday, we headed to "Avonlea Village," a newer Cavendish attraction. I didn't really know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised by the whole experience. You pay to get into the village, which consists of a group of shops and buildings made to look like the town of Avonlea. That in itself would get boring after about ten minutes, but thankfully they have actors dressed up like Anne, Diana, Gilbert, Josie, Matthew, Marilla, Mr. Phillips, Miss Stacey, and some of the others, and they actually get really into their roles. Sometimes they walk around town talking to people, other times they're involved in skits or concerts that are put on throughout the day. I can honestly say, with a little imagination, I felt like I had fallen right into the books. 

Prince Edward Island 2008 Trip Blog - Day 4 (Morning)

DAY 4 (MORNING):
SITE OF L.M. MONTGOMERY'S CAVENDISH HOME
THE "HAUNTED WOOD"

GREEN GABLES

& CAVENDISH

Thursday was our day in Cavendish. It started out cloudy, with showers, but it would improve. We made our first stop at Rachael's Ristorante, a yellow restaurant just off the main corner in Cavendish. Remember how, in the books, Rachel Lynde's house was on the corner at Avonlea crossing? That's kind of what they were going for. Apparently the restaurant was once a house owned by a woman who was L.M. Montgomery's inspiration for Rachel Lynde. I guess it would be easy to be the town gossip queen if you lived in the center of town and saw everything that happened. Anyway, we ate breakfast there, and they had good food. 



Next we decided to visit the site of L.M. Montgomery's Cavendish home, since it was closeby. You go up a dirt driveway and pay to see some interesting things, like an old well and the foundation upon which L.M.'s house once stood. Now, if you recall, we've already been to the home where she was born, but this is (or, rather, was) a house where she lived for a good portion of her life, the home of her grandparents, I believe. (Her mother died when she was young, and her father moved somewhere else; eventually L.M. went to live with him, but that came later.) Once you're at this site, you can follow -- on foot -- a path into some woods, then you can cross the highway and walk through more woods to the Green Gables House. (More on that later.)

Between this site and the Green Gables house is something called the "Haunted Wood." For those of you who haven't read the books or seen the movies, Anne's wild imagination turns one otherwise benign little forest into something creepy and ghostly. These woods were here in L.M.'s time, and were evidently her inspiration for that aspect of the novel. So below you'll see pictures of nature and plaques from both the site of L.M. Montgomery's Cavendish home and the Haunted Wood. Remember, you can click on any photo to enlarge it. 

Prince Edward Island 2008 Trip Blog - Day 3

DAY 3:
NEW LONDON
DALVAY-BY-THE-SEA
& CHARLOTTETOWN

On Wednesday, we had one particular destination in mind: Dalvay-By-The-Sea, a semi-posh, old-fashioned hotel, whose exterior was used in the second AOGG movie and as the "White Sands Hotel" on the TV series Road To Avonlea. During the summer, they have something called the "White Sands Tour and Tea," but they only offer this three days a week -- Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We'd be gone by Friday, and we hadn't wanted to schedule anything for Monday, the day we arrived, so Wednesday was our only option. We'd made reservations over a month in advance, but it probably wasn't necessary. That morning at breakfast, we told two of the other B&B-dwellers about it. They decided it sounded like fun, so they drove to Dalvay to see if there was still room on the tour, and there was, so hey.

We drove along Highway 6 to get there, and on our way, we went by the LMM Birthplace again, because I was itching to get a photo of the General Store I'd seen across the street. 

Prince Edward Island 2008 Trip Blog - Day 2

DAY 2:

BORDEN-CARLETON

SUMMERSIDE

Tuesday was rainy again, so we decided to change our original plans. Instead of going into Cavendish on Tuesday, we spent the morning in Borden-Carleton, in a shopping area near the Confederation Bridge. The only reason I knew about the place at all was because one of the shops -- Cavendish Figurines, Ltd. -- was listed on a penny collecting website -- they have an Anne smushed penny machine. I misread the site, however, and thought they were supposed to have 2 machines, and was confused when they just had one. It turns out the other machine was located in the Vistor Information Center, just across the street. Did I go in there? Nope. D'oh! But that's okay, that'll just give me something else to look forward to on my next PEI visit. At least I got the Anne penny, which is the one I wanted anyway. The other penny was for the Confederation Bridge, and even though we were right by the bridge, it was so foggy that day, we couldn't even see it! 

Below are some pictures from around that shopping area. If you're planning a trip to PEI for "Anne" reasons, this place is worth a visit.

Prince Edward Island 2008 Trip Blog - Day 1

So I'm finally getting around to re-posting the blog of my trip to Prince Edward Island from 2008. When I switched hosting companies in 2009 or 2010, the photos I edited specifically for that trip report went into the netherworld, so I'm copying & pasting the text and going through the original photos and trying to match things up.

A bit of an explanation: I've loved Anne Of Green Gables since my early twenties. Even though I watched the Megan Follows movies growing up, I wasn't that into Anne until I became an adult and read the novel and started watching the film regularly. Then it was just love. Because of my fancy for all things Anne, I decided I wanted to go to Prince Edward Island, where the novel is set. The year I decided I wanted to do this just happened to be the 100th anniversary of the book's publication, so it seemed like perfect timing. I began to make plans.

My mom decided she'd like to go, too, so I made plans for two....