Colourful Victorian clapboard houses in on Prince Edward Island, Canada Tourists on this very spot have fallen to their knees and cried with joy. I'm standing under a cherry tree on the lush lawn of a green-shuttered farmhouse known as the home of Anne of Green Gables. This is where Lucy Maud Montgomery based her classic story of red-haired, freckle-faced orphan Anne, who brought infectious exuberance to her community and brought the author fame even today, 116 years after her instant best-seller was first published.
Across the world and generations, book lovers dream of visiting this literary landmark. In Anne of Green Gables, Montgomery created dizzying descriptions of her impossibly idyllic surroundings and it is the main tourism draw here to the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island. Her 1908 book is a cultural phenomenon in Japan, where it's taught in every school.
Hiroko Suzuki, considered the island's most knowledgeable Anne of Green Gables tour guide, loved the book so much that she left Japan to visit here 31 years ago and has stayed. READ MORE Lanzarote panic as resort town on popular Canary Island hit by beach closure She has grown used to witnessing such emotion when tourists see the legendary house for the first time. "It's a lifelong goal for many people," she says.
"It's hard to believe somewhere so beautiful exists. Then people get here and it's more special than they imagined." Hiroko shows off the rooms that have been painstakingly furnished to mirror li.