It was a grey and cool day today, great for doing a walking tour of Charlottetown. We found a van friendly parking spot near Founder’s Food Hall and Market and proceeded to explore the market. Two Beggars, a pet accessories shop, had a window to the outside and a bell where dogs could ring to get a treat. There was lots of dog activity!

A quick stop at the information centre gave us a map with various walking tours and made us aware of the Mayor’s opening BBQ outside. Free hotdogs, chips and drinks – why resist?

We started on the Waterfront Walk which took us by various shops, some with funny slogans, the yacht club, and then onto streets with beautiful historic houses.

The highlight of the day was The Cook’s Edge, a shop with a seemingly excessive number of mostly Japanese fine cooking knives with prices ranging from below $100 to over $3600 for a single knife. Marcel and his colleague Chase spent close to two hours enthusiastically showing us exquisitely made knives and teaching us about the blade geometries, sharpening techniques, types of steel and use of each of these tools and pieces of art. In the end, impulse buying got the better of us, and we left the store with a finely detailed knife capable of cutting potatoes tissue paper thin, and a fine ceramic honing rod to keep our new investment touched up. No electric sharpener for this one, Martin is going to need to use the water stones from the workshop that also keep chisels sharp.

Feeling slightly guilty, we stopped at St. Dunstan’s Basilica where a soloist and an organist were rehearsing. We spent quite a while listening to the singing and music while admiring this magnificent beautiful church.

Dinner was a pretzel, pint of beer and a pickle at the aptly named Pretzel, Pint and Pickle bar followed by a short walk back to our van.