The morning we sailed into St. Anthony it was sunny and getting warm. It was clear we were out of the stormy seas and cold and damp weather we had experienced in Greenland!
We had no immediate plans for St. Anthony. The biggest draw for this port stop was a UNESCO rated Viking settlement called L'Anse aux Meadows, which is an archaeological site and discovered in 1960. Outside of Greenalnd, it is the most famous site of a Norse or Viking settlement in North America.
According to Wikipedia, L'Anse aux Meadows dates back to 1000 BC and is the only site widely accepted as evidence of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact. Experts believe it is very probably an attempted colonization of Vinland that was established by Leif Ericson. It was named a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1978.
Adrienne and I decided that we would skip the trip to L'Anse aux Meadows and just enjoy a leisurely day around the little town of St. Anthony. Both of us had missed internet access, as Greenland is just too remote, so we hightailed it into town once we got off the tender and went in search of a Tim Horton's coffee place. Like Starbucks in the U.S., Tim Horton's is a terrific coffee and pastry shop and also has free wireless access!
It was a good 20 minute walk to the Tim Horton's and by the time we got up there, the place was already packed and finding a seat at a table was almost impossible. However, Adrienne had got there a few minutes before me, and snagged us 2 chairs at a small table for 4. I purchased a coffee and a donut and we sat down with our laptops and set to work trying to catch up on our emails, etc. The problem, however, is that everyone else in the shop was trying to do the same thing - we had over 100 people in there accessing Tim's wireless and guess what? Access slowed to barely a crawl. It took us over 2 hours to get through just some basic access. But, I was able to upload a group of pictures (posted here) and Adrienne was able to catch up on her emails with friends and family.
We finished up our laptop chores and headed back towards the ship - The ship was supposed to leave port at 2 PM so it was a short day anyway. Back on board, we had lunch and then spent the afternoon at the Thermal Suites.
