Charlottetown, PEI - HAL's Trolley Tour
Our tour was on a San Francisco style trolley. We toured the Fathers of Confederation route called the Great George Street, where the fathers of Canada formed the country in 1864. We really ended up going through the PEI University campus twice and past the Founders Hall three times. We stopped at Province House for an hour. Here you can tour some of the legislature rooms on the second floor and watch a 15 minute video on the first floor. We chose not to watch the video but to take a walk along Great George Street past the St Dunstans Basilica and its Parish offices next door. We walked down to a little shop and browsed around before heading back up towards the trolley. We walked along Richmond Street - loaded with all types of restaurants. This area is also known as Victoria Row where there are supposed to be some shops -- saw only a couple. We did not know that we were within a short distance of Queen Street where all the shopping is and where Ann of Green Gables chocolate store is. Our tour guide never made mention of this. Our tour guide also did not mention that if we walked to the back of Province House on Grafton Street there is a beautiful garden, fountain and a monument to the soldiers of WWI and WWII. Also on Grafton Street is Beaconsfield, a stately Victorian home built in 1877 for James Peake Jr a wealthy merchant and ship builder. Then we toured past some historic homes dating from the 1820’s, including the lieutenant governor’s mansion. We also toured through a new residential district with some pretty pricey homes along the bay. For what we saw along Great George Street where we spent most of our time, we didn’t need a tour - could have done it on our own.
Thankfully we were here a second time as we did back-to-back cruises. We walked everywhere the second week - including the places that our tour missed -- all are within walking distance of the pier.
Don't waste your money on this tour - it's an easy walk.
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