About a month before leaving for our trip, I mentioned it to my uncle who said “you might be there for Old Home Week.” I had no idea what he was talking about and after looking it up, realized we would in fact be in Charlottetown for part of Old Home Week. Somehow in all our research we neglected to find anything about one of the biggest summer festivals on the Island! I’m glad he mentioned it though so that we could prepare to attend some of the festivities, including the Gold Cup Parade.
As luck would have it Parade Day was a rainy one, but that didn’t stop everyone from attending, including us. The parade was a fun way to spend the morning and a great introduction to what Old Home Week is all about, which is basically PEI and it’s people.
After the parade we decided a beer was in order so we ducked into Gahan House for a pint and respite from the rain. I had the Raspberry Sour and Jon had the Vic Park Pale Ale.
Next up was lunch at Slaymaker & Nichols. The place itself is very beautiful and we were wondering if the food would match. We were not disappointed when our order arrived: the lobster bao and sesame tuna salad.
This meal was one of the more vegetable-heavy meals we’d had (unless you count potatoes as vegetables, which we do!) and we were happy and nourished. Since the day was a rain-out, we spent it indoors until going to the Olde Dublin Pub for their oyster happy hour. Even though we had dinner reservations at Claddagh Oyster House in the same building we couldn’t pass up the buck-a-shuck special at Olde Dublin. You can order up to 36 oysters at a time, which was tempting to do, but given that we were definitely having more oysters at Claddagh later we decided to go with our usual dozen.
We have been to Charlottetown three times now, and we always make it a point to have dinner at Claddagh Oyster House. They have some of the best oysters on the island and always have great specials, and the night we went was no exception. The half-lobster and steak special was great for sharing (yes, we had steak the night before, but we weren’t passing this up!) and the oysters were perfect, as always.
On our walk home after dinner we spotted an arcade, PonyBoat, and decided to check it out. We played Skee Ball, Bubble Hockey, pinball and some other arcade games. It was a fun indoor activity on a rainy night!
Walking was light this day so no map or step count!
This is a fantastic summary of all the places – food-drinks-the story and pictures are fantastic it gave me the feeling I was doing the trip myself whiteout the walking. Great to read and see all the pictures.