To those who can dream, there is no such place as far away.” Anonymous
It was a very early start to the day with no deck walking or gym. We had breakfast about 7 and then back to the room to get our stuff together before heading to our main stage meeting point. This was a first … our tour group was called 15 minutes early! That has never happened to us before. AND, we were the first tour group off the ship – I don’t think that has every happened before either.
Madeira is a volcanic island that is covered in colorful flowers and fruit trees. We saw bananas and sugar cane. The island is 35 miles long and 13 miles wide. The thin, windy roads make it seem much larger. About half of the residents of the island reside in Funchal.
Funchal is the capital of the island of Madeira and is divided into 3 sections – the Old Town on the east side with historic architecture, the west side is a touristy hotel area, and between the two is the city center. The famous Reid hotel was in front of our ship and up the hill. It was built by a Scottish Reid (I wonder if it is some distant relative of my dad’s family). Winston Churchill was a frequent guest here.
We had a very modern, air-conditioned bus. Our local guide spoke a very heavily accented English. Jeff said she sounded like she was speaking the part of the priest in the Princess Bride! Our first stop was to a Catholic Church (The Church of Our Lady of Monte) and we found out on the trip there, and on the walk from the bus to the church, why this excursion was billed as strenuous. We were walking on miniature cobble stones and everything was steeply uphill (all 6700 steps today)!
As we started walking, I told Jeff that my vertigo was back with a vengeance because the bus ride was uphill and hairpin curves the entire way. (I had vertigo really bad when we first got on the cruise but the motion of the ship actually cured it which seems totally counterintuitive)
The church was beautiful and the ceiling was painted wood which was different from anything I’ve seen before. It was rebuilt after the earthquake of 1818 . The original church dates back to 1515. The last emperor of Austria, Karl I, is buried in one of the side chapels. Here’s some pictures:
After the church we walked down some stairs (I think this was the ONLY downhill walk today) to an overlook where the Monte Toboggan sledges were queued up and ready for customers (with a cruise ship in town they were ready for ALL of us to come take a ride!). Each two-seater wicker sledge glides on wooden runners, and are pushed and steered by two men traditionally dressed in white cotton clothes and a straw hat. They use their rubber soled boots as brakes. It is a 10 minute ride, at 35 euros per couple, to get you to the bottom of the mountain. The guys get paid at the end of the day on how many sledges they take down the hill.
We returned to the bus and were dropped off for our cable car ride down the mountain to the Botanical Gardens of Madeira. We encountered some sheep just wandering UP the road while we walked to the cable car.
It was a lovely garden and <surprise!> it was filled with miniature cobble stone paths. They also had a natural history museum. We spent about an hour there before we headed to the market.
Here’s a couple of pictures of the city roads. These particular roads are wide in comparison to some the bus drove on today to get us up to the church and cable cars. There were hairpin turns and extremely narrow streets with people walking and cars parked up against the rock face of the mountains. On more than one occasion, the bus driver had to wait for cars to go by so he could use both lanes to make a turn. There were also plenty of tunnels and very high overpasses.
The market was mostly fruits, vegetables and flowers. There was a fish market in the basement, but I’m amusing you know what fish look and SMELL like … so we passed on that photo opportunity. We ended up walking the <surprise!> cobblestone streets and window shopped. And this will come as another surprise … we went into a local market to look for Dr. Pepper (is anyone surprised that we DIDN’T find any?) and ended up with a coke and chocolate covered peanuts.
Our final stop was wine tasting. Everyone says how good Madeira wine is and I have to agree that it was pretty tasty! Jeff doesn’t drink wine and another lady at our table didn’t either. We were given 2 types of wine to try so I had 6 glasses 😊 Is it any surprise that as a result I totally forgot to take a picture of all my empty wine glasses? Guess who is no longer is dealing with vertigo? Maybe it’s the drinks and not the ship that’s the cure!
Now we’re back on the ship and skipping lunch. Tonight’s entertainment is Avatar: They Way of
Water. Unfortunately, they are NOT showing it on demand in our room. I just don’t think I can possibly stay awake during a 3 hour movie in the evening. I’ll let you know. Update: We passed!
For dinner tonight … I have been so good passing on desserts … and tonight, FINALLY, they had cherry crisp. And it did NOT disappoint! I think it is the best dessert of the entire cruise that Holland does.
We do plan on doing Science trivia after dinner and will hopefully better our Art trivia score from yesterday. Update: we scored 12/18. In case you’re curious the shortest name of an element in the periodic table is Tin. You’re welcome 😊