Funchal, Madeira, Portugal
We docked into Funchal (means fennel in Portuguese) at about 8 a.m. GL and I were already up, washed, dressed and breakfasted by then, the ship having gone through a time change overnight. I love these 25-hour days!
Funchal is the largest city on the island of Madeira. Tropical, volcanic, black sand and amazing vegetation, you might even think you are in Hawaii. It’s quite the vacation spot for Britishers, we heard, and there were plenty of British accents on the streets, in addition to the Portuguese we were expecting. Even the churches had a service in English. Of course, the 3 cruise ships in port could have had something to do with that! The other two ships were a little smaller than ours, but even so, we figured about 4000 cruisers were wandering around the island, some on tours, but some unaccompanied, like us!
We took a shuttle bus from the ship into town (yes, we could have easily walked it in about 20 minutes) and set off in search of the Se Cathedral. Wasn’t too hard to find, as the old town is about 5 streets wide. Because it was Sunday, services were being held, so we went in as if we were going to mass and waited until they were finished. In the 10 minutes between services, we looked at the gold chapel with the silver chalice. The entire chapel was covered in gold, lit up by the sun streaming in through a stained glass window. As the sun rose higher in the sky, the chapel lost its heavenly glow. But gold walls, ceiling and altar are pretty impressive even without the celestial lighting.
We also found the Municipal plaza, which is paved in black and white stones. The weirdest tree: pink and white flowers, no leaves, and hanging fruit 8 inches long and 3 inches in diameter, dark brown. What the heck is it?
Even though it was Sunday, the little kiosks along the main street were open for your shopping pleasure. T-shirts, mattresses, salt and pepper shakers, baskets, terra cotta frogs for the garden, candy, flowers, etc. I bought a handful of beads and some string to make a necklace, both to remind me of Funchal and to have something to do on the ship over the next week. Then back to the ship by the shuttle.
7 days at sea, next stop Bahamas on Monday, Nov 1. Hoo-boy.