Funchal, Madeira

Thursday, our 5^th day at sea we arrive in Funchal, Madeira.

We cruised along the island and docked just as we finished our breakfast, then we met Ralph and Hanny in reception at 9.25am and left the ship. The promised shuttle bus was no where to be seen and none of the 4 people that we asked knew anything about a shuttle bus, I think they were too interested in selling their own tours.

Then the driver opened the door of the nearest bus that had been sitting there all along, and put a sign in the window saying ‘Shuttle Bus’.

It was a less than 10 minute trip into the town centre, we got off next to a tourist information booth and got directions to the Telerifico (the cable car).

 It was a 5 minute walk along the sea front and we were pleased to see that there was only a very short queue.

Ralph had some euro left over from their stay in Holland so he paid for our tickets too. E10 each.

It was a great long ride up the mountain, and soon we noticed some blackened houses, sheds and gardens, particularly in the ravines, remnants from the recent massive fire that hit the island.

At the summit we paused to look back down onto Funchal and our little cruise ship dwarfed by the huge P & O cruise ship alongside / in front of us. (We prefer our ‘homely’ vessel rather than the massive block of flats!)

It was a short walk alongside the botanical gardens in Monte and the air was beautifully cool after the humidity in the town.

Then we spotted the white clad men and their toboggans. We joined a very short queue (borrowed more cash from Ralph, E30 for two people) and then we were seated and away.

The toboggans slide along on wooden slats so are quite hard to steer and we were sometimes sideways as we hurtled down the hillside between the houses, on a public road.

All too soon we were at the end of the trip. We must have been euphoric because, without hesitation, we bought the photo of us on the ride. (We put it up on the wall in our cabin for the rest of the cruise, and I took a photo of it to reproduce here).

We declined the offers of a taxi back down into the town centre, and set off to walk down the hill.

The taxis drivers told us we were mad, it’s 6 kms! But it is all down hill, how hard can it be?

Well, we started out well but one by one we all started to ‘feel it’ in our knees and thighs.

Mercifully when we were wishing a taxi would appear – we turned the corner and there was a cafe.

After a rest and some tea we set off again and were delighted that the muscles had stopped screaming. Soon we were back in the town centre streets and walked along to the Market Hall.

A lovely building with lots of food, flower and souvenir stalls. We looked down on the fish market, enthralled by the size of the knife to cut the fish (presumably tuna) into slices and then delicately debone the slices with the skill of a surgeon with the same huge knife.

Just along from the market we stopped for lunch at an outside cafe, 3 Sandwiches with Brie, Parma Ham and salad, 1 vegie burger , all served with chips or salad and 4 home made local lemonades came to a whopping total of E20. Great value.

At the cafe we got directions to Rue de la Santa Maria in the oldest part of the town, where I wanted to see the murals that had been painted along the whole street by local artists following the damage caused by the huge storm that hit the island in 2010.

The street is now a bustling street with lots of restaurants, but having had our lunch we declined all the offers from the spruikers and just took photos on our way.

The street was just 2 streets back from the cable car station so we had completed a little circuit of a very small part of town. As we debated how to get back to the ship, Michael made a sudden dash down the street – he’d spotted a supermarket and that final opportunity to get that instant coffee was fulfilled.

(We also bought 2 x 1.5litre bottles of zero cola as they don’t serve it on board the ship).

The transport debate was solved when we spotted a taxi rank. We climbed aboard and our very chatty, friendly driver had us back to the ship in 5 minutes. I personally found the trip a little hair raising because as I was sitting behind him I could see how many times he gesticulated with both hands in the air, for what seemed like quite a few seconds.

Any way we arrived safe and sound.

We enjoyed the late afternoon sunshine as we sailed away from Funchal.

 We ate in the Waldorf restaurant at night, rather that at the buffet, because I have an open bottle of wine put aside. It looked as if we were going to be the only 2 at the table that night, but as it was set for 4 Ralph and Hanny left their table (where they were the only 2) and joined us. The waiters were more than happy to lay more places at the table but it proved unnecessary as the other diners did not show.

After dinner Ralph and Hanny went off to check out the evening’s late entertainment but we headed back for an early night. We got an extra hour’s sleep as the clocks were set back one hour.

The next morning those leg muscles seemed okay, we climbed the 2 flights of stairs up to the breakfast buffet quite easily but going down was a different story – those muscles are still complaining.

To punish those muscles further, I made myself walk around the deck – 9 laps again, that’s only 2 kilometres and thank goodness it’s totally flat (apart from a slight sea roll).

At dinner in the buffet that evening the catering manager came to ask how we were doing, I said that we were fine now that we had decent coffee and showed him our jar of Nescafe - “Oh we have that”, he said. I said that they only had decaf. “No we have the other, I will get it for you”.

Sure enough the next day at the coffee station there were individual sachets of both full strength Nescafe alongside the decaf. Now that we know they have it we’ll make sure that we ask if it’s not on show. A win!!!

We have figured out that the coffee is probably so bad because they start the brew at 6.00am and never empty the urn, just keep topping it up all day long so stale coffee and grinds all mix together constantly. Other passengers say it’s dreadful but comments I’ve heard so far have been, ‘It’s not as bad as airplane coffee’ , It improves if you add salt!, ‘You’ll get used to it’. (No we won’t and now we don’t have to).

The inevitable ‘kennel cough’ has spread around the ship, someone picked up the cold that seemed to be everywhere in London and now about half the passengers are coughing and sneezing. Michael took to his bed for a full day and then seemed to be okay with just a little irritating cough. I got slight hayfever type snuffles and it was soon passed.

The excitement on deck was the presence of a young female Peregrine Falcon. Which our resident wildlife expert on board tells us was probably blown off course when flying south, and will stay with us until Antigua. She is a beautiful bird and I was lucky enough to be standing on deck when she settled directly in front of me. I didn’t have the camera ready and ‘froze’ so that I didn’t scare her away – I don’t have ‘that shot’ but I have the image in my mind still.

She isn’t going short of food with a plentiful supply of Storm Petrels around, particularly at night when they are attracted to the ship’s lights.

Other wildlife seen are Flying Fish, absolutely amazing creatures. Some ‘fly’ quite a long distance over several waves, you’d have to be really quick and have a super camera to get a photo of one.

My deck laps are slowly increasing, I’ve set myself a minimum of 9 each day with as many extras as I feel like. Current max, is 16. but I’ll start out later in the day as now we’re in the tropics it’s very hot until around 4pm, but there’s always a chance of rain around that time too.

But the bad news is that the supply of instant coffee sachets has stopped, I’ve given up asking staff to get a sachet as it can take 10 minutes for them to re-appear. So we are carrying the jar of coffee with us to every meal, it just fits into my evening bag and the waiters are getting used to our request for a pot of hot water instead of tea or coffee after the meal.

(A couple have smiled and nodded agreeing that the coffee is indeed ‘not nice’.)

The Atlantic Ocean is vast and on this voyage beautifully calm and the weather is glorious. The ship’s passengers are a mix of Australian, English and German. The Germans place beach towels on the sun loungers and spend all day in the sun. The English take every opportunity to sit in the sun and the palest people on board are the Australians, who spend the day in the shade and take the air in the late afternoon.

Everyone stops what they’re doing for food. It can be quite a noisy affair eating at the buffet so we have adjourned to the more refined Waldorf for all meals now. It’s much more sedate and quiet enough to enjoy conversation with fellow diners. And who doesn’t enjoy being pampered and waited on all the time? I think it might help to keep the weigh down too, we aren’t tempted to have large portions and sometimes order half size meals at lunch if not too hungry.

Our downfall may be the bread – it is absolutely, incredibly fabulous. The brown bread is so good that we presumed the baker on board would be German, but when we went on the Galley tour we met the bakers and they’re Indian and Indonesian! Incredibly good bread.