[ July 2019 ] The last place we visited during our taxi tour on Prince Edward Island in Canada was Confederation Bridge which connects the island and the mainland.
This is about 13 km bridge which starts at Borden Carleton, the town on the south side of the island and ends in New Brunswick province on the other side.
It is apparently the world longest bridge over the freezing sea.
They started building it in October 1993 and completed in May 1997.
Our driver, Billy was involved in it last two years of building.
He had looked bored while we were travelling in “Anne of Green Gables” world, but now he woke up and explained things lively.
Before the bridge was made, they transferred the goods and people by rail to Borden Carleton and cross the sea by ferry, so this town was an important port town, but now everyone just passes here.
Billy said that this town was bustling during the time of construction, too.
At the park at the foot of the bridge, the old wagon and tracks were exhibited.
According to Billy, the reason why the bridge is curved is to avoid the impact of the ice and the bridge girders have some facilities to break the ice.
Well, he explained it in detail, but I could not follow.
They started building the bridge from both side of the shore and in the end, they met in the middle.
When the wind is too strong, the traffic will be suspended.
The toll is about 47 C$ (£29, €32 $35) and Billy said “We are campaigning that it should be free for the islanders as the construction cost was already covered”.
One of his sisters lives just on the other side and “She often comes to this side, because they do not have Tim Hortons over there” he said.
Tim Hortons is a fast food chain we often saw in Canada, though we did not go in any of them.
The tour ended and we came back to Charlottetown.
We overran the planned tour time, so we were very hungry.
We went straight away to the restaurant Billy told us, called Sims Steakhouse & Oyster Bar.
Although they had only the counter seats, we accepted that and sat at the counter, as we were very tired by then.
First, we had raw oysters.
They had many kinds and the woman in the counter said “Shall I choose my favourites?”, so we had three kinds of her favourites.
Each one tasted differently and they were nice and fat and very tasty.
For the main, we both had a pasta dish.
Mine had mussels and small scallops in the lobster sauce and it was a little spicy.
My husband’s pasta had lobster itself and some cheese.
Both were very good and now we understood why Prince Edward Island is well known for seafood.
We had dessert, too and a bottle of Prosecco as well as a glass of dessert wine and the bill was about 190 C$ (£116, €130, $143).
The woman at the counter was very nice and friendly and she told us ” If you like oysters, go to the restaurant on the corner after 10 pm, then you can eat them cheaply”, though we could not go as we were too full.
This woman could be the owner of this restaurant as she said that she lives only 4 minutes away from here.
