In October we took a trip to New England and Atlantic Canada. We had not flown since before the pandemic but we decided to do so this time, since Atlantic Canada is such a long drive from California. We flew to Boston and spent a couple of days there seeing the sights. Carrie had never been to New England so it was a treat to see new things. We discovered some great Italian restaurants in Boston’s North End, a neighborhood favored by Italian immigrants during the great migration of the late 1800s and early 1900s. There are literally a hundred Italian restaurants within an area of less than a square mile. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.
From Boston we drove north and spent a day in Acadia National Park in Maine. The Atlantic Coast scenery is beautiful there, and we had some great lobster in nearby Bar Harbor. The fall colors were spectacular throughout all of New England and Atlantic Canada.
We crossed the border into New Brunswick and then over to Halifax, Nova Scotia. About an hour’s drive down the coast from Halifax is Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, and we spent a day there. Lunenburg is a UNESCO World Heritage Site because it is one of the best examples of planned British colonial settlement in North America, as it retains its original layout and appearance of the 1800s. We strolled around town and saw lots of beautiful historic buildings.
After Nova Scotia came the purpose of the trip – the Prince Edward Island (PEI) Fibre Festival, a knitting and fabric event that Carrie was looking forward to. We crossed the eight-mile-long bridge to PEI and settled into our hotel in Charlottetown for a few days. PEI is Canada’s smallest and least populated province, so it’s an out-of-the-way destination. On our first morning we toured a sheep and flower farm on PEI, about a 45 minute drive from Charlottetown. We saw lots of sheep and we got to observe one being sheared. Over the course of three days we also visited the festival’s vendor booths and Carrie took a couple of knitting classes.
A highlight of the Marketplace was when Carrie met Celine, the owner of Cactus Yarn Studio in Quebec. Last year, Carrie joined knitters from all over to knit a 20th anniversary Clapotis shawl, an event hosted by Knitty.com. The Clapotis was their most famous pattern downloaded and knitted when they first opened Knitty.com 20 years ago. Knitters who submitted an entry last year voted on their top 5 Clapotis, and the top 50 were able to choose hand dyed yarns from vendors who sponsored the anniversary. Carrie’s Clapotis #74 was one of the favorites, and she chose her yarn from Cactus Yarn in Quebec. Celine and Carrie were happy to meet!
PEI was the setting for Anne of Green Gables, one of Canada’s most famous works of fiction, published in 1908. Parks Canada has established a small historic park on PEI’s north shore, preserving the house that was the inspiration for the novel and also maintaining a visitor center with historical artifacts related to the book and its author, Lucy Maud Montgomery. The author had spent part of her childhood around Green Gables, and it was interesting to learn how her own experiences influenced the characters and settings in the book.
After PEI it was back to the US and the drive through New England to Boston. Along the way we had a great lunch at a waterfront restaurant in Portland, Maine. We spent our last night in the hotel in the Boston airport and we had a panoramic view of the city from our hotel window.
We were back in Sacramento in late October, just in time to see the Halloween decorations in our neighborhood. The folks in our neighborhood love to put out elaborate decorations for the holidays.
