Our family is familiar with welcome centers when you enter a new state. It often coincides with a bathroom break during our travels. But the welcome center that beats all welcome centers is the one you encounter at the base of the Confederation Bridge right after you arrive on Prince Edward Island.
Gateway Village is the official name of this welcome center, and let me tell you, this place definitely lives up to its name! It’s like a little village all on its own!
This little area actually looks like a turn-of-the-century little village with streets and quaint buildings. Not only can you get information about the island, but you can grab some food, do a little souvenir shopping, or play on the playground.
When you enter, you are met by the funny sign welcoming you to the island. Road Trip Family is always up for a photo opportunity, so we promptly made our way over to get pictures.
In the main Information Center building, there are the required bathrooms and quick snacks and maps and pamphlets.
Rows and rows of maps and pamphlets.
Paraphernalia that is categorized around the room based on location on the island.
Having never been to the island before, we had done some research and had made our ticket reservations for the Anne musical, but didn’t have a lot of ideas about the “little” things around the island. You know, the unique stores or the obscure museums or historical spots.
We spent some time pouring over all of this information. If it does get a bit overwhelming, there are concierges available at the information desk to help you out, answer any questions, and offer suggestions.
One of our favorite finds while we were there, were the Anne of Green Gables “passports” that we picked up for each of the girls. This little booklet had 2 pages devoted to a certain location important to the Anne stories or to the life of Lucy Maude Montgomery. There was also a place in each section where the girls could get their passports stamped each time we visited one of these places. What fun the girls had bringing their passports along and getting them stamped. It was also fun to see how many of these spots we actually did visit!
Along with the information center, there are gift shops where you can purchase souvenirs, both Anne related and island related. We all had fun touring around these buildings.
One shop we didn’t realize was there until we stopped on our way off the island was a Cows store! This ice cream was some of the yummiest ice cream our family has ever had. We had our first taste of Cows on Monday of our vacation and tried to have a little bit of this ice cream almost every day. This ice cream is made with local ingredients and is based on a secret family recipe that is still used today! It’s also an entertaining place to go from the funny ice cream names like “Moo-York Cheesecake” and “Wowie Cowie” to the funny souvenir t-shirts like “Angry Herds” and “Moo-Tube” and “Super Moorio Brothers.”
FYI – it’s another good place where you can purchase raspberry cordial (see last Thursday’s post!).
Gateway Village was definitely a good stop to make when we first arrived. But, it was also a great place to have that one final goodbye as you get ready to exit the island. We had one more taste of Cows ice cream, we bought a few more souvenirs and we got a picture in front of the Anne statue.
It’s definitely a village worth visiting!
Another great post! Looking forward to the return....I think the Welcome Center has expanded a bit. Hugs
Posted by: MaryBeth Hibbert | 07/16/2013 at 08:57 AM