What a peculiar day it has been, weatherwise. It was bright and sunny when we left the hotel and within 50m, it started to pour – still with the sun brightly shining! Then the clouds came and within 5 minutes, it was back to bright sunshine – and so it continued for the whole day. Cancelling any plans we had for a day of wandering Funchal’s back streets, we made a quick trip to the Chapel, which had been closed yesterday and hooray! it was open, so Tom took some piccies of the painted interior. That involved him lying on the floor while trying to focus the camera, on his little “gorilla”tripod, up at the ceiling – I think the priest who was on guard must have thought he was mad!
Since, as I say, the weather was being very unfriendly, we caught the bus to Madeira Shopping, “the largest shopping centre in Madeira”, which is out near Pico dos Barcelos where Andre took us to the viewpoint on Sunday. Most of the occupants of the bus were also making their way there, so it was a mass exodus on arrival! Well, it is quite big compared to the other shopping centres we’ve seen, but small in comparison to even normal town centres in UK. Mostly filled with dress and jewellery shops, no nice gift shops and nothing that we were drawn to purchase. We did have coffee and stickies, however, while watching alternate sunshine and pouring rain and gave up after an hour, catching the bus back down to Funchal centre.
Deciding to wait about 45 minutes for the hotel coach, we had another drink, in what has become our café of choice, the Apolo by the cathedral and watched more sun and showers while enjoying the repartee of the waiters with what was obviously their regular clientele. Couldn’t understand a word, but the interplay was most amusing!
In the evening, we returned to the White House for dinner, with more free Madeira wine from our 2 lovely “guest gatherers”, Sandra and Theresa. What a way to earn a living – accosting people in the streets and inveigling them in to eat, but the 2 of them seem to have quite a good success rate and other diners, like us, come back several times. We’ve promised to send them copies of the photos Tom took of them with me.
And that was the end of what is almost our last day here as tomorrow is sorting out our stuff and packing.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Thursday 29 January
Another very dull and chilly day today – the weather has really changed this week. After the lost day yesterday, I was determined to get out and see some more sights before we leave on Sunday.
On the way into town, we stopped off at the statue of “Sisi” which stands near the Casino.
Sisi was the Princess Elizabeth, wife of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary. She came to Madeira in 1860, ostensibly for her health, but biographers speculate that she was in fact bored with court life and unhappy in her marriage, because she made a remarkable recovery, although she did die here. (Tom’s note – Now that’s what you really call a recovery.) She was the great aunt of Charles I who was the last Emperor of Austria-Hungary, exiled to Madeira in 1921, and died here in 1922. He was the one beatified by the Pope in 2004 and whose tomb we saw in Monte church.
Our first visit was to the Casa Museu Frederico de Freitas, where there is a tile museum, as well as the house which Senor de Freitas rented for 30 years and houses his collections. The tile museum was disappointing, because none of the signs was in any other language than Portuguese; there was no guide book and we were followed around by attendants as if we were about to pinch all the tiles, which were stuck to the walls or in glass cabinets anyway! The tiles themselves were pretty amazing, but it would have been more interesting if there were some information. No photography was allowed (which Tom accepted as a challenge) and there were CCTV cameras in all the rooms, however….
Tsk! tsk!
Casa de Calcada was Dr de Freitas’ abode until he died in 1978, when he left the contents of the house to the Municipal authorities. Showing amazing good sense, the said authorities bought the house so that they could display the contents in their original location.
Again, no photography was allowed and no guide books were available, although there was a very brief English description of each room, and I mean brief eg “Kitchen – this has an interesting wood-burning stove and a selection of copper utensils”. It’s a beautiful house and is exceptionally well looked after. The collections are varied and eclectic. There are some wonderful pieces of English furniture (Sheraton, Hepplewhite and Chippendale), French inlaid miniature chests, china from all over the world, and some exquisite pieces of carved ivory. The Mug room has a huge collection of mugs and jugs, ranging from priceless Meissen to “kiss-me-quick” seaside tat (bare breasted ladies whose bosoms form a perfect thumb rest while you drink!). The Library holds a fine collection of books,in Portuguese, French and English covering a wide variety of subjects. There’s a delightful, tiny Winter Garden inside with a glass roof and a door leading to the outside formal garden, for if the weather was more clement.
Unlike our own stately homes open to the public, there are no barriers between you and the contents. Precious articles are within reach with just a few notices asking you not to touch, and small valuable items are wired. While we were there, a party of schoolchildren was being shown around by one of the curators. He was wearing gloves and items of particular interest would be picked up and demonstrated to them. He really had them enthralled, judging from the “wows” and “oohs” we could hear – they were certainly well-behaved and QUIET!
This time, Tom was NOT able to sneak any interior piccies as we had constant surveillance from the attendants. It seems odd that, not only can you not take photos, but there are no photographs or books for sale. I would love to have a good book about the house and its contents as it is so beautiful.
As we were leaving, Tom saw a leaflet advertising Holmes Place Health Club Funchal. Since Andy worked at, then managed HP in Chelsea and Islington for several years, we thought we’d pay it a visit. A very nice young man, speaking perfect English, showed us round, apologising for the fact that it’s the smallest HP club in the group, with no pool or sauna! It didn’t look very small to us and was fairly busy.
I was definitely flagging by then, so we stopped off at one of the coffee shops by the cathedral, where we were serenaded by a wandering accordion player – whether we wanted it or not! – and had to pay him off.
Then we wandered through the old town, down what was the first street in Funchal, Rua de Santa Maria, towards the Fortaleza de Sao Tiago (Fort of Santiago) where there are 2 museums – Military and Contemporary Art. You can guess which one Tom was interested in! It’s not exactly wide ranging, in fact, it’s just a small collection of guns! But still infinitely more interesting that “the bucket of poo” that comprises the Art collection. I’m sure some people would tell you that the “Large Bathtub” painting
and the “Hanging Rock”,
have deep meaning, but we failed to find it. (Tom says that the most interesting part of the “Hanging Rock ” was the rawl plug in the ceiling that the hook to hang it from was screwed into.)
The Fort itself was worth a visit
and, although we found out as we were leaving that we should have paid to enter, nobody had stopped us and asked for money.
The Capelo do Corpo Santo is highly recommended in our guide book and is just round the corner from the Fort.
Advertised as open from 3.00pm – 5.00pm, we couldn’t wait to see this “Baroque Jewel”, so on the dot of 3, we were hovering outside. The waitress in the café opposite said the man who opened up the Chapel, sometimes doesn’t appear until 20 past, so would we like a drink while we waited? This was a very good sales technique, so we sat and had a drink while we waited, and waited……..and waited. Then she said “oh, he sometimes doesn’t turn up at all”. Today was clearly one of those days!!
By that time, it was after 4.00pm, the weather had not improved so we decided to call it a day and go back. Just as well, as no sooner were we in the coach than it started to rain! Dinner tonight is the rest of the Chinese from last night.
Tom’s just got to do the photos for today, then he can go and post the blog for all you avid readers. So, bye for now.
On the way into town, we stopped off at the statue of “Sisi” which stands near the Casino.
Sisi was the Princess Elizabeth, wife of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary. She came to Madeira in 1860, ostensibly for her health, but biographers speculate that she was in fact bored with court life and unhappy in her marriage, because she made a remarkable recovery, although she did die here. (Tom’s note – Now that’s what you really call a recovery.) She was the great aunt of Charles I who was the last Emperor of Austria-Hungary, exiled to Madeira in 1921, and died here in 1922. He was the one beatified by the Pope in 2004 and whose tomb we saw in Monte church.Our first visit was to the Casa Museu Frederico de Freitas, where there is a tile museum, as well as the house which Senor de Freitas rented for 30 years and houses his collections. The tile museum was disappointing, because none of the signs was in any other language than Portuguese; there was no guide book and we were followed around by attendants as if we were about to pinch all the tiles, which were stuck to the walls or in glass cabinets anyway! The tiles themselves were pretty amazing, but it would have been more interesting if there were some information. No photography was allowed (which Tom accepted as a challenge) and there were CCTV cameras in all the rooms, however….
Tsk! tsk!
Casa de Calcada was Dr de Freitas’ abode until he died in 1978, when he left the contents of the house to the Municipal authorities. Showing amazing good sense, the said authorities bought the house so that they could display the contents in their original location.
Again, no photography was allowed and no guide books were available, although there was a very brief English description of each room, and I mean brief eg “Kitchen – this has an interesting wood-burning stove and a selection of copper utensils”. It’s a beautiful house and is exceptionally well looked after. The collections are varied and eclectic. There are some wonderful pieces of English furniture (Sheraton, Hepplewhite and Chippendale), French inlaid miniature chests, china from all over the world, and some exquisite pieces of carved ivory. The Mug room has a huge collection of mugs and jugs, ranging from priceless Meissen to “kiss-me-quick” seaside tat (bare breasted ladies whose bosoms form a perfect thumb rest while you drink!). The Library holds a fine collection of books,in Portuguese, French and English covering a wide variety of subjects. There’s a delightful, tiny Winter Garden inside with a glass roof and a door leading to the outside formal garden, for if the weather was more clement.Unlike our own stately homes open to the public, there are no barriers between you and the contents. Precious articles are within reach with just a few notices asking you not to touch, and small valuable items are wired. While we were there, a party of schoolchildren was being shown around by one of the curators. He was wearing gloves and items of particular interest would be picked up and demonstrated to them. He really had them enthralled, judging from the “wows” and “oohs” we could hear – they were certainly well-behaved and QUIET!
This time, Tom was NOT able to sneak any interior piccies as we had constant surveillance from the attendants. It seems odd that, not only can you not take photos, but there are no photographs or books for sale. I would love to have a good book about the house and its contents as it is so beautiful.
As we were leaving, Tom saw a leaflet advertising Holmes Place Health Club Funchal. Since Andy worked at, then managed HP in Chelsea and Islington for several years, we thought we’d pay it a visit. A very nice young man, speaking perfect English, showed us round, apologising for the fact that it’s the smallest HP club in the group, with no pool or sauna! It didn’t look very small to us and was fairly busy.
I was definitely flagging by then, so we stopped off at one of the coffee shops by the cathedral, where we were serenaded by a wandering accordion player – whether we wanted it or not! – and had to pay him off.
Then we wandered through the old town, down what was the first street in Funchal, Rua de Santa Maria, towards the Fortaleza de Sao Tiago (Fort of Santiago) where there are 2 museums – Military and Contemporary Art. You can guess which one Tom was interested in! It’s not exactly wide ranging, in fact, it’s just a small collection of guns! But still infinitely more interesting that “the bucket of poo” that comprises the Art collection. I’m sure some people would tell you that the “Large Bathtub” painting
and the “Hanging Rock”, have deep meaning, but we failed to find it. (Tom says that the most interesting part of the “Hanging Rock ” was the rawl plug in the ceiling that the hook to hang it from was screwed into.)The Fort itself was worth a visit
and, although we found out as we were leaving that we should have paid to enter, nobody had stopped us and asked for money.The Capelo do Corpo Santo is highly recommended in our guide book and is just round the corner from the Fort.
Advertised as open from 3.00pm – 5.00pm, we couldn’t wait to see this “Baroque Jewel”, so on the dot of 3, we were hovering outside. The waitress in the café opposite said the man who opened up the Chapel, sometimes doesn’t appear until 20 past, so would we like a drink while we waited? This was a very good sales technique, so we sat and had a drink while we waited, and waited……..and waited. Then she said “oh, he sometimes doesn’t turn up at all”. Today was clearly one of those days!!By that time, it was after 4.00pm, the weather had not improved so we decided to call it a day and go back. Just as well, as no sooner were we in the coach than it started to rain! Dinner tonight is the rest of the Chinese from last night.
Tom’s just got to do the photos for today, then he can go and post the blog for all you avid readers. So, bye for now.
Tuesday 27 and Wednesday 28 January
We set off this morning after breakfast to Palheiro Gardens to the northeast of Funchal. “If you only visit one garden on the island, make sure it’s Palheiro” says the guide book, so who are we to disagree?
Since the local bus service is so good, there’s no problem getting there, so we joined the happy Madeirans who had already been to market and were now on their way home laden with goodies. We stood for part of the way, hanging on for our lives as the bus ground its way ever upwards, taking the 90+ degree corners as if the driver thought he was on a race track! By the time we were halfway to Palheiro, most of the locals had left the bus, so at least we got seats – and were treated to more spectacular views over the city and harbour – no cruise ship today.
Once we reached the terminus, we had to walk about 400m downhill to the Garden entrance to find it was 10euros each to go in + 2euros for a guide leaflet. Oh well, we won’t be coming back here and it was recommended, so we paid our dues and in we went. January is not the best month to see these gardens! Although they are quite extensive, they’re not a patch on the Monte Palace Gardens (for the same price). Much of the area is given over to lawn; the newly formed rose garden is just bare earth with very young rose bushes, no foliage or flower yet and, although the magnolias and camellias had started to come into flower, the overall impression was dull. The only area I really liked was the lady’s garden, but even that had very little flowering in the beds.
So it was a disappointing start to the day. We did have a nice drink in the tea rooms there, then set off on the next stage of our day – the levada walk from Palheiro to Romeiros, about 4 ½ miles.
But first, we had to climb back up to the village from where the instructions in the guide book said “walk 100m to a garage where you’ll see a sign pointing to the track to the Levada dos Tornos and the Jasmin Tea House”. Well, for a start, we missed the sign so walked further up yet another hill until we met a man who sent us back! The “track” was an almost vertical climb (it certainly felt like it to me!!) beside a water course taking some of the flow from the levada.
Once on the flat it was OK and we set off towards Romeiros (the walk actually goes on to Monte, but this last part is the most difficult so Tom had decided we’d miss it out).
It was a very pleasant walk, among the trees and with a broad path so no scary drops! We met quite a lot of walkers travelling the other way – we were going up the levada and they had obviously decided going down was better, not that walking up was difficult as the levada is built on a very gradual downward slope. One couple we met on a bend with a very narrow pathway and a sheer drop to the road beneath.
I wasn’t very happy but the man going the other way had to be led past us almost with his eyes closed! (It’s quite reassuring to meet someone else whose phobia is worse than you own!)
There are 2 cafes along the way, the Jasmine Tea Rooms and the Hortensia Tea Rooms. One couple we passed recommended Hortensia as “their orange cake is to die for”, so we duly decided that would do. It was further on the walk anyway, and when we reached it looked very pleasant. We had our drinks and orange cake, well worth the recommendation.
The clouds had appeared again, so we donned our fleeces before setting off on the next leg.
The levada follows the contours of the land so it is a very wandering path. Some of the time we could hear traffic below us on the roads but couldn’t always see it. Other times there were clear views down and several times, we had to cross roads where the levada flowed underneath. Some of these were amazing – goodness knows what degree the slope was!
Beyond the tea rooms, a huge collection tank sits at a bend opposite a basic filtration system designed to clear the natural debris that collects in the levada. The tank is enormous. Above this, the water deepened to 1m – up to this point, it was about 60cm deep, but the levada itself is about 2m deep, so it clearly carries a lot more water at times. A little further on, we came upon an area where there had been a recent rock fall, creating a mini weir in the channel.
On one stretch, we passed through a private estate of very luxurious villas built on stilts – or at least, they would have been luxurious had the surroundings not been all overgrown and the villas themselves rather unkempt.
This is the Choupana Lodge Holiday Spa and Resort.
The next stretch is also through woodland
but it was much damper here and we had 3 streams to cross. These natural water courses coming off the hills are directed over the levada so that soil, leaves and stones don’t enter and block the flow. The streams were no more than 1cm deep so were no hazard.
Shortly after crossing the third one, we could see the bus stop at Romeiros, but still had to walk another few hundred metres round the valley walls, then down some very steep steps to reach it.
Remember I said at the beginning of the holiday that we would either be very fit or knackered by the end of it? Well, Tom’s fit and I’m knackered!! I could hardly speak while we waited for the bus – the walk on top of the garden visit was just too much, either on their own would have been fine.
The bus trip down the hill was a revelation! Much of it was on roads NOT designed for 2 vehicles to pass, and with hairpin bends, there wasn’t much visibility, but we careered downwards anyway. Tom said that, as our driver was a mature man, he had clearly driven safely for years. But could it not have been that he was a young man aged prematurely by the hazards of the job?!? Whatever, we arrived safely but with a few more grey hairs of our own!
Having partaken of the Hortensia’s rather yummy cake at lunchtime, neither of us was hungry enough for dinner, so we bought a couple of Madeiran speciality breadsticks with bacon, cheese and garlic from the stand near the bus stop and brought them back here. With a packet of crisps and a glass of wine, it was a perfect supper.
Wednesday 28 January
I’m becoming fed up with feeling ill. I had an awful night, coughing, with a sore throat, and have been absolutely useless today! (You know what Tom will say to that statement!) My throat feels like sandpaper, I’ve used up nearly all the painkillers I brought from home AND those we’ve bought here, and wasted yet another day. Fortunately, the weather has not been so good - although it hasn’t rained, it has been very dull and quite cool. Tom’s read 2 books even though I told him he should go out, and just now (7.00pm) has gone to fetch Chinese takeaway to tempt me. He’s lovely really. Let’s hope I feel better tomorrow and we can do some of the Funchal visits we’ve been saving for the last few days.
Since the local bus service is so good, there’s no problem getting there, so we joined the happy Madeirans who had already been to market and were now on their way home laden with goodies. We stood for part of the way, hanging on for our lives as the bus ground its way ever upwards, taking the 90+ degree corners as if the driver thought he was on a race track! By the time we were halfway to Palheiro, most of the locals had left the bus, so at least we got seats – and were treated to more spectacular views over the city and harbour – no cruise ship today.
Once we reached the terminus, we had to walk about 400m downhill to the Garden entrance to find it was 10euros each to go in + 2euros for a guide leaflet. Oh well, we won’t be coming back here and it was recommended, so we paid our dues and in we went. January is not the best month to see these gardens! Although they are quite extensive, they’re not a patch on the Monte Palace Gardens (for the same price). Much of the area is given over to lawn; the newly formed rose garden is just bare earth with very young rose bushes, no foliage or flower yet and, although the magnolias and camellias had started to come into flower, the overall impression was dull. The only area I really liked was the lady’s garden, but even that had very little flowering in the beds.
So it was a disappointing start to the day. We did have a nice drink in the tea rooms there, then set off on the next stage of our day – the levada walk from Palheiro to Romeiros, about 4 ½ miles.But first, we had to climb back up to the village from where the instructions in the guide book said “walk 100m to a garage where you’ll see a sign pointing to the track to the Levada dos Tornos and the Jasmin Tea House”. Well, for a start, we missed the sign so walked further up yet another hill until we met a man who sent us back! The “track” was an almost vertical climb (it certainly felt like it to me!!) beside a water course taking some of the flow from the levada.
Once on the flat it was OK and we set off towards Romeiros (the walk actually goes on to Monte, but this last part is the most difficult so Tom had decided we’d miss it out).It was a very pleasant walk, among the trees and with a broad path so no scary drops! We met quite a lot of walkers travelling the other way – we were going up the levada and they had obviously decided going down was better, not that walking up was difficult as the levada is built on a very gradual downward slope. One couple we met on a bend with a very narrow pathway and a sheer drop to the road beneath.
I wasn’t very happy but the man going the other way had to be led past us almost with his eyes closed! (It’s quite reassuring to meet someone else whose phobia is worse than you own!)There are 2 cafes along the way, the Jasmine Tea Rooms and the Hortensia Tea Rooms. One couple we passed recommended Hortensia as “their orange cake is to die for”, so we duly decided that would do. It was further on the walk anyway, and when we reached it looked very pleasant. We had our drinks and orange cake, well worth the recommendation.
The clouds had appeared again, so we donned our fleeces before setting off on the next leg.The levada follows the contours of the land so it is a very wandering path. Some of the time we could hear traffic below us on the roads but couldn’t always see it. Other times there were clear views down and several times, we had to cross roads where the levada flowed underneath. Some of these were amazing – goodness knows what degree the slope was!
Beyond the tea rooms, a huge collection tank sits at a bend opposite a basic filtration system designed to clear the natural debris that collects in the levada. The tank is enormous. Above this, the water deepened to 1m – up to this point, it was about 60cm deep, but the levada itself is about 2m deep, so it clearly carries a lot more water at times. A little further on, we came upon an area where there had been a recent rock fall, creating a mini weir in the channel.
On one stretch, we passed through a private estate of very luxurious villas built on stilts – or at least, they would have been luxurious had the surroundings not been all overgrown and the villas themselves rather unkempt.
This is the Choupana Lodge Holiday Spa and Resort.The next stretch is also through woodland
but it was much damper here and we had 3 streams to cross. These natural water courses coming off the hills are directed over the levada so that soil, leaves and stones don’t enter and block the flow. The streams were no more than 1cm deep so were no hazard. Shortly after crossing the third one, we could see the bus stop at Romeiros, but still had to walk another few hundred metres round the valley walls, then down some very steep steps to reach it.Remember I said at the beginning of the holiday that we would either be very fit or knackered by the end of it? Well, Tom’s fit and I’m knackered!! I could hardly speak while we waited for the bus – the walk on top of the garden visit was just too much, either on their own would have been fine.
The bus trip down the hill was a revelation! Much of it was on roads NOT designed for 2 vehicles to pass, and with hairpin bends, there wasn’t much visibility, but we careered downwards anyway. Tom said that, as our driver was a mature man, he had clearly driven safely for years. But could it not have been that he was a young man aged prematurely by the hazards of the job?!? Whatever, we arrived safely but with a few more grey hairs of our own!
Having partaken of the Hortensia’s rather yummy cake at lunchtime, neither of us was hungry enough for dinner, so we bought a couple of Madeiran speciality breadsticks with bacon, cheese and garlic from the stand near the bus stop and brought them back here. With a packet of crisps and a glass of wine, it was a perfect supper.
Wednesday 28 January
I’m becoming fed up with feeling ill. I had an awful night, coughing, with a sore throat, and have been absolutely useless today! (You know what Tom will say to that statement!) My throat feels like sandpaper, I’ve used up nearly all the painkillers I brought from home AND those we’ve bought here, and wasted yet another day. Fortunately, the weather has not been so good - although it hasn’t rained, it has been very dull and quite cool. Tom’s read 2 books even though I told him he should go out, and just now (7.00pm) has gone to fetch Chinese takeaway to tempt me. He’s lovely really. Let’s hope I feel better tomorrow and we can do some of the Funchal visits we’ve been saving for the last few days.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Monday 26 January
What a busy day this has been! As I said yesterday, we booked to go on the east island tour so were up and breakfasted by 9.00am ready for Andre. Josef arrived instead as Andre had taken a party walking at Pont da Sao Lourenco at the far east of Madeira. Josef is not part of Madeira Blue Sun but as it was his day off from the other company he works for, he was moonlighting. We were meant to pick up another couple from the Tivoli (5 star hotel), but on arrival found only one German lady, who was expecting to go on the west tour! So after protracted discussion, she retired in a huff and we set off on a personal tour! Let me say at this point, the weather was beautiful – full sun and warm – now read on!
Our first stop was Camacha (700m), which is the basket weaving centre. Here it was quite chilly but still sunny. In the factory, we watched 3 men and 1 woman making different items – as with all experts, they made it look so simple.
There were lots of pieces I really liked, but with luggage space at a premium, I only bought 2 small baskets.
Much of the furniture in the showroom is made by expert weavers from their homes in the town, and in the summer months, tourists can see them working in the back streets. Camacha is the first place in Portugal where football was played. In 1875, the English son of a local resident brought a football back from his public school, and taught others how to play. A garden now stands where this first pitch was with only a commemorative plaque to mark the spot.
The island is now football mad, and has 2 teams who play in the Portuguese Premier League. They have to fly to Portugal for all their away games, and the other Portuguese teams have to fly to the island for the home games. As they share the very modern stadium that has recently been built, they take it in turns to play, so there is a home game every week.
After Camacha, we went off the main roads westward onto rough country roads lined with acacia and mimosa trees, which have only started to bloom, but already look very pretty. (I know they have yellow flowers and you know that isn’t my favourite colour, but, yes, they do look very pretty in their natural settings!) The roads are rough because further up the hill, there is a soil treatment plant. This soil from the fertile upper slopes is cleaned and sent in huge lorries down to all the public gardens all over the island. As soon as we passed this plant, the road improved. We were now climbing into the start of the clouds but as yet they were thin and didn’t detract from the views.
On the far side of the valley were what I thought were a lot of dead trees. These are young sweet chestnut trees and they do not start to produce foliage until February. After they are harvested in October, a Chestnut Festival is held. We had a piece of chestnut cake yesterday when we stopped at Curral and the Madeirans also make a strong liqueur from the nuts.
The trees around us now were smaller firs and more acacia and mimosa. Still climbing, we reached Poiso at 1413m, then climbed further, now in low cloud so we couldn’t see anything much, to Pico de Areiro, 1818m.
There are meant to be fantastic views over most of the centre of Madeira from here, but we had to take Josef’s word for this as we could only see about 20m in front of us!
As this is a dead end road, we turned and drove back down to Poiso. The vegetation on this higher ground is very scrubby with mostly heathers, gorse and ferns, similar to parts of Scotland and Wales. Some of the best honey is made by the bees that collect from this area and the land around Curral das Freiras.
Now we continued our trip northwards to Ribiero Frio, where the itinerary had a short walk planned. No chance! By this time, it was p**ing down, so we just had a coffee stop in the village, which is no more that a dozen houses. It does have a trout farm so we had a quick look at that
then into the warm hostelry for a lovely cup of coffee beside an open log fire.
There were lots of walkers around who had given up and were awaiting transport. Who wants to come to Madeira to walk in the rain when you can stay at home and do it more cheaply!
The next stage of the tour was continuing north up and down the San Roque de Faial valley, where we left the narrow main road and set off down an extremely winding single track, between houses (some were really only huts or hovels) all with terraced gardens growing all kinds of vegetables and fruit. There were some very nice properties interspersed with the hovels. Josef told us that these were mainly built by returning immigrants, many from Venezuela, but some from Russia and Eastern Europe.
A short history lesson now, so you can miss this bit out if you like! According to Josef, in 1931 the islanders rebelled against Salazar who tried to drain the island’s resources for his own gain. As a punishment, when Salazar, a fascist, became Portugal’s Prime Minister in 1939, he virtually abandoned Madeira and left the Madeirans to their own devices. Many emigrated during the 48 years of his “reign” to Venezuela, South Africa and Australia. When the army staged a coup in 1974 and the fascists were ousted from power, these emigrants started returning to Madeira and families who had been left behind. Many of these now are recultivating land that had been allowed to go wild. You can see from the overgrown terracing how much was once there. With all this new produce, Madeira now is self sufficient in nearly all the fruit and vegetables consumed and mainly it is the women who look after the gardens.
Forestation on the hills here is mostly eucalyptus, brought in from Australia and thriving on the island. The trees are only used for telegraph poles as the wood is too brittle to be used for much else.
At Faial on the north coast, we stopped at a viewpoint which was once a small fort protecting the inhabitants from the pirate raids.
Faial is built in the shadow of a huge outcrop called Eagle Rock and the viewpoint is on a promontory opposite the rock. As we have come to expect, the views were amazing – yes, it had stopped raining and we could see in the distance again! We were due to have lunch there, so put in our orders, then set off northwest to the “city” of Santana. The largest settlements on the island have been given “city” status in order to be able to claim funding from the EU for the interconnecting roads and tunnels that have transformed the transport system. Pictures of Santana always show their traditional “A”shaped thatched cottages, so we were expecting to see lots of them. Not so! We saw about a dozen altogether, and could only get into 2 of them.
One belongs to a Madeiran who emigrated to Venezuela and when he returned to reclaim the property he’d left behind, he lived in the A frame house while he was building a more modern one at the rear.
The A frame house still retains the original furniture from that time, and looks as though it’s still being lived in.
(In fact, judging from the smell in the tiny bathroom, it just might be!!). We gave him a contribution, in return for which he gave us a drink of very potent home made coffee liqueur and a biscuit, then insisted on showing us round his garden, which was actually fascinating.
All kinds of plants were crammed in so that wherever you looked, there was something different. He had lots of beautiful orchids, including a tiny flowered one which had the most delicious scent. Unfortunately, due to the language barrier, we couldn’t find out what it was called apart from “orchid”! He had a custard apple tree in one corner and gave us a large custard apple from it, which he said would be ready to eat in 2 days – so I’ll let you know the verdict!
The other “house” we could enter, was one of an immaculate pair, landscaped prettily and looking almost brand new.
This was set up as a workshop for a lady who weaves traditional Madeiran cloths on a hand loom, but she didn’t speak English and there was no literature either about the houses or the weaving, so I was disappointed. Apart from that, we saw nothing in Santana of interest. As with many of the smaller villages, poverty is quite prevalent with many empty and derelict houses, and land left wild.
Back on the road to Faial,
we took the recently constructed new road through one of the innumerable tunnels. According to Josef, there are 146 tunnels here, with more planned. Lunch was at the Restaurant Grutas where we had pre-ordered meat as our main course. Fish was brought instead, so there was a short wait while they cooked our steaks, but they were very good when they did arrive. The restaurant is inside a cave
– warm in winter, “fresh” in summer as it was described to us. We had traditional cabbage soup for starters (delicious) and what we thought was a crème caramel (CC) for afters. Tom loves CC so tucked in with gusto – for one mouthful!! It looked like CC, it even smelt like CC, but it tasted like it was made with something like semolina, quite stodgy and with a very strange tasting sauce, which I think may have been passion fruit as there’s a lot of that here.
Having been satisfactorily filled with food and wine, we took yet another winding road to Porto da Cruz where we stopped at a viewpoint to look back at the other face of Eagle Rock. An attempt was made here to persuade us to buy plants and seeds at some roadside stalls – the stallholders were quite pushy and we think Josef had an arrangement with them, as he dropped us off by the viewpoint then drove to the other side of the stalls, forcing us to make our way past them. We did buy some strelitzia (bird of Paradise) seeds, as we had already decided we’d like to try growing some in the conservatory. They tried to persuade us to buy all sorts of other seeds, bulbs and plants, but we weren’t interested, so they weren’t very happy about it. Tough!
Back in the bus again and on to Portela, the gateway between north and south. Then on to Machico on the east coast, where we went round the town to the north and east to a lookout point where we could see the Airport and the only bit of real sand, which Josef said has been imported from Morocco.
We watched a couple of planes take off after which we drove north to Canical, where the new container port and Industrial area has been built. All container ships used to come into Funchal harbour, and there was a huge container park right in the centre of the city, with lorries continually loading and unloading right where the cruise ships docked. The decision was made to move the commercial port to Canical, which has a sheltered location. It had the dual advantage of freeing Funchal from the heavy lorry traffic and providing employment in a very impoverished area. Canical used to be the whaling centre and with the ban on whaling, there were no alternative jobs so unemployment was rife. 5 years ago the port was opened and an entire new industrial area has built up around it. This forms the eastern end of the system of new roads and tunnels serving the north and south and with the planned extensions of infrastructure at the west end, there will eventually be a complete loop around the island.
Our last part of the sight seeing day was to drive out almost as far east as you can drive on the island, to the Sao Lourenco peninsula where we were treated to spectacular views along north and south coasts.
Driving back on the Via Rapida to Funchal, you pass under the extended runway of the airport, built on 172 concrete stilts as they had already used all of the available land. According to Josef, there has only been one aircraft accident on Madeira (before the runway was extended) caused by a pilot attempting an approach in visibility below minimum. Over 100 people lost their lives when the plane hit the vertical lip at the end of the runway, broke apart and fell into the sea. Only 2 people were saved, a baby and a young boy, who still lives on the island but has never recovered from the trauma of losing his entire family in the crash. We’ve bought postcards of the airport with the extension clearly visible, and as Tom says, he would not wish to lose an engine at a critical stage as there is NO room to manoeuvre. Left or right, you choose the rock face OR the ocean!
No wonder our pilot wouldn’t attempt the landing in less that 5km visibility.
As the traffic was heavy, Josef came off the Via Rapido and wended our way back via the old roads, seeing a little more of the old Funchal on the way. It was a long and interesting day, marred only by the fact that we couldn’t go on our walk and we couldn’t see the stunning views from Pico de Arriero that are shown in the guide books. No dinner tonight – we’re still stuffed from lunch – and I wonder what the stroppy German lady did all day?!?
Our first stop was Camacha (700m), which is the basket weaving centre. Here it was quite chilly but still sunny. In the factory, we watched 3 men and 1 woman making different items – as with all experts, they made it look so simple.
There were lots of pieces I really liked, but with luggage space at a premium, I only bought 2 small baskets. Much of the furniture in the showroom is made by expert weavers from their homes in the town, and in the summer months, tourists can see them working in the back streets. Camacha is the first place in Portugal where football was played. In 1875, the English son of a local resident brought a football back from his public school, and taught others how to play. A garden now stands where this first pitch was with only a commemorative plaque to mark the spot.The island is now football mad, and has 2 teams who play in the Portuguese Premier League. They have to fly to Portugal for all their away games, and the other Portuguese teams have to fly to the island for the home games. As they share the very modern stadium that has recently been built, they take it in turns to play, so there is a home game every week.
After Camacha, we went off the main roads westward onto rough country roads lined with acacia and mimosa trees, which have only started to bloom, but already look very pretty. (I know they have yellow flowers and you know that isn’t my favourite colour, but, yes, they do look very pretty in their natural settings!) The roads are rough because further up the hill, there is a soil treatment plant. This soil from the fertile upper slopes is cleaned and sent in huge lorries down to all the public gardens all over the island. As soon as we passed this plant, the road improved. We were now climbing into the start of the clouds but as yet they were thin and didn’t detract from the views.
On the far side of the valley were what I thought were a lot of dead trees. These are young sweet chestnut trees and they do not start to produce foliage until February. After they are harvested in October, a Chestnut Festival is held. We had a piece of chestnut cake yesterday when we stopped at Curral and the Madeirans also make a strong liqueur from the nuts.
The trees around us now were smaller firs and more acacia and mimosa. Still climbing, we reached Poiso at 1413m, then climbed further, now in low cloud so we couldn’t see anything much, to Pico de Areiro, 1818m.
There are meant to be fantastic views over most of the centre of Madeira from here, but we had to take Josef’s word for this as we could only see about 20m in front of us!As this is a dead end road, we turned and drove back down to Poiso. The vegetation on this higher ground is very scrubby with mostly heathers, gorse and ferns, similar to parts of Scotland and Wales. Some of the best honey is made by the bees that collect from this area and the land around Curral das Freiras.
Now we continued our trip northwards to Ribiero Frio, where the itinerary had a short walk planned. No chance! By this time, it was p**ing down, so we just had a coffee stop in the village, which is no more that a dozen houses. It does have a trout farm so we had a quick look at that
then into the warm hostelry for a lovely cup of coffee beside an open log fire. There were lots of walkers around who had given up and were awaiting transport. Who wants to come to Madeira to walk in the rain when you can stay at home and do it more cheaply!The next stage of the tour was continuing north up and down the San Roque de Faial valley, where we left the narrow main road and set off down an extremely winding single track, between houses (some were really only huts or hovels) all with terraced gardens growing all kinds of vegetables and fruit. There were some very nice properties interspersed with the hovels. Josef told us that these were mainly built by returning immigrants, many from Venezuela, but some from Russia and Eastern Europe.
A short history lesson now, so you can miss this bit out if you like! According to Josef, in 1931 the islanders rebelled against Salazar who tried to drain the island’s resources for his own gain. As a punishment, when Salazar, a fascist, became Portugal’s Prime Minister in 1939, he virtually abandoned Madeira and left the Madeirans to their own devices. Many emigrated during the 48 years of his “reign” to Venezuela, South Africa and Australia. When the army staged a coup in 1974 and the fascists were ousted from power, these emigrants started returning to Madeira and families who had been left behind. Many of these now are recultivating land that had been allowed to go wild. You can see from the overgrown terracing how much was once there. With all this new produce, Madeira now is self sufficient in nearly all the fruit and vegetables consumed and mainly it is the women who look after the gardens.
Forestation on the hills here is mostly eucalyptus, brought in from Australia and thriving on the island. The trees are only used for telegraph poles as the wood is too brittle to be used for much else.
At Faial on the north coast, we stopped at a viewpoint which was once a small fort protecting the inhabitants from the pirate raids.
Faial is built in the shadow of a huge outcrop called Eagle Rock and the viewpoint is on a promontory opposite the rock. As we have come to expect, the views were amazing – yes, it had stopped raining and we could see in the distance again! We were due to have lunch there, so put in our orders, then set off northwest to the “city” of Santana. The largest settlements on the island have been given “city” status in order to be able to claim funding from the EU for the interconnecting roads and tunnels that have transformed the transport system. Pictures of Santana always show their traditional “A”shaped thatched cottages, so we were expecting to see lots of them. Not so! We saw about a dozen altogether, and could only get into 2 of them.One belongs to a Madeiran who emigrated to Venezuela and when he returned to reclaim the property he’d left behind, he lived in the A frame house while he was building a more modern one at the rear.
The A frame house still retains the original furniture from that time, and looks as though it’s still being lived in. (In fact, judging from the smell in the tiny bathroom, it just might be!!). We gave him a contribution, in return for which he gave us a drink of very potent home made coffee liqueur and a biscuit, then insisted on showing us round his garden, which was actually fascinating. All kinds of plants were crammed in so that wherever you looked, there was something different. He had lots of beautiful orchids, including a tiny flowered one which had the most delicious scent. Unfortunately, due to the language barrier, we couldn’t find out what it was called apart from “orchid”! He had a custard apple tree in one corner and gave us a large custard apple from it, which he said would be ready to eat in 2 days – so I’ll let you know the verdict!The other “house” we could enter, was one of an immaculate pair, landscaped prettily and looking almost brand new.
This was set up as a workshop for a lady who weaves traditional Madeiran cloths on a hand loom, but she didn’t speak English and there was no literature either about the houses or the weaving, so I was disappointed. Apart from that, we saw nothing in Santana of interest. As with many of the smaller villages, poverty is quite prevalent with many empty and derelict houses, and land left wild.Back on the road to Faial,
we took the recently constructed new road through one of the innumerable tunnels. According to Josef, there are 146 tunnels here, with more planned. Lunch was at the Restaurant Grutas where we had pre-ordered meat as our main course. Fish was brought instead, so there was a short wait while they cooked our steaks, but they were very good when they did arrive. The restaurant is inside a cave – warm in winter, “fresh” in summer as it was described to us. We had traditional cabbage soup for starters (delicious) and what we thought was a crème caramel (CC) for afters. Tom loves CC so tucked in with gusto – for one mouthful!! It looked like CC, it even smelt like CC, but it tasted like it was made with something like semolina, quite stodgy and with a very strange tasting sauce, which I think may have been passion fruit as there’s a lot of that here.Having been satisfactorily filled with food and wine, we took yet another winding road to Porto da Cruz where we stopped at a viewpoint to look back at the other face of Eagle Rock. An attempt was made here to persuade us to buy plants and seeds at some roadside stalls – the stallholders were quite pushy and we think Josef had an arrangement with them, as he dropped us off by the viewpoint then drove to the other side of the stalls, forcing us to make our way past them. We did buy some strelitzia (bird of Paradise) seeds, as we had already decided we’d like to try growing some in the conservatory. They tried to persuade us to buy all sorts of other seeds, bulbs and plants, but we weren’t interested, so they weren’t very happy about it. Tough!
Back in the bus again and on to Portela, the gateway between north and south. Then on to Machico on the east coast, where we went round the town to the north and east to a lookout point where we could see the Airport and the only bit of real sand, which Josef said has been imported from Morocco.
We watched a couple of planes take off after which we drove north to Canical, where the new container port and Industrial area has been built. All container ships used to come into Funchal harbour, and there was a huge container park right in the centre of the city, with lorries continually loading and unloading right where the cruise ships docked. The decision was made to move the commercial port to Canical, which has a sheltered location. It had the dual advantage of freeing Funchal from the heavy lorry traffic and providing employment in a very impoverished area. Canical used to be the whaling centre and with the ban on whaling, there were no alternative jobs so unemployment was rife. 5 years ago the port was opened and an entire new industrial area has built up around it. This forms the eastern end of the system of new roads and tunnels serving the north and south and with the planned extensions of infrastructure at the west end, there will eventually be a complete loop around the island.Our last part of the sight seeing day was to drive out almost as far east as you can drive on the island, to the Sao Lourenco peninsula where we were treated to spectacular views along north and south coasts.
Driving back on the Via Rapida to Funchal, you pass under the extended runway of the airport, built on 172 concrete stilts as they had already used all of the available land. According to Josef, there has only been one aircraft accident on Madeira (before the runway was extended) caused by a pilot attempting an approach in visibility below minimum. Over 100 people lost their lives when the plane hit the vertical lip at the end of the runway, broke apart and fell into the sea. Only 2 people were saved, a baby and a young boy, who still lives on the island but has never recovered from the trauma of losing his entire family in the crash. We’ve bought postcards of the airport with the extension clearly visible, and as Tom says, he would not wish to lose an engine at a critical stage as there is NO room to manoeuvre. Left or right, you choose the rock face OR the ocean! No wonder our pilot wouldn’t attempt the landing in less that 5km visibility.As the traffic was heavy, Josef came off the Via Rapido and wended our way back via the old roads, seeing a little more of the old Funchal on the way. It was a long and interesting day, marred only by the fact that we couldn’t go on our walk and we couldn’t see the stunning views from Pico de Arriero that are shown in the guide books. No dinner tonight – we’re still stuffed from lunch – and I wonder what the stroppy German lady did all day?!?
Monday 26 January
What a busy day this has been! As I said yesterday, we booked to go on the east island tour so were up and breakfasted by 9.00am ready for Andre. Josef arrived instead as Andre had taken a party walking at Pont da Sao Lourenco at the far east of Madeira. Josef is not part of Madeira Blue Sun but as it was his day off from the other company he works for, he was moonlighting. We were meant to pick up another couple from the Tivoli (5 star hotel), but on arrival found only one German lady, who was expecting to go on the west tour! So after protracted discussion, she retired in a huff and we set off on a personal tour! Let me say at this point, the weather was beautiful – full sun and warm – now read on!
Our first stop was Camacha (700m), which is the basket weaving centre. Here it was quite chilly but still sunny. In the factory, we watched 3 men and 1 woman making different items – as with all experts, they made it look so simple. There were lots of pieces I really liked, but with luggage space at a premium, I only bought 2 small baskets. Much of the furniture in the showroom is made by expert weavers from their homes in the town, and in the summer months, tourists can see them working in the back streets. Camacha is the first place in Portugal where football was played. In 1875, the English son of a local resident brought a football back from his public school, and taught others how to play. A garden now stands where this first pitch was with only a commemorative plaque to mark the spot.
The island is now football mad, and has 2 teams who play in the Portuguese Premier League. They have to fly to Portugal for all their away games, and the other Portuguese teams have to fly to the island for the home games. As they share the very modern stadium that has recently been built, they take it in turns to play, so there is a home game every week.
After Camacha, we went off the main roads westward onto rough country roads lined with acacia and mimosa trees, which have only started to bloom, but already look very pretty. (I know they have yellow flowers and you know that isn’t my favourite colour, but, yes, they do look very pretty in their natural settings!) The roads are rough because further up the hill, there is a soil treatment plant. This soil from the fertile upper slopes is cleaned and sent in huge lorries down to all the public gardens all over the island. As soon as we passed this plant, the road improved. We were now climbing into the start of the clouds but as yet they were thin and didn’t detract from the views.
On the far side of the valley were what I thought were a lot of dead trees. These are young sweet chestnut trees and they do not start to produce foliage until February. After they are harvested in October, a Chestnut Festival is held. We had a piece of chestnut cake yesterday when we stopped at Curral and the Madeirans also make a strong liqueur from the nuts.
The trees around us now were smaller firs and more acacia and mimosa. Still climbing, we reached Poiso at 1413m, then climbed further, now in low cloud so we couldn’t see anything much, to Pico de Areiro, 1818m. There are meant to be fantastic views over most of the centre of Madeira from here, but we had to take Josef’s word for this as we could only see about 20m in front of us!
As this is a dead end road, we turned and drove back down to Poiso. The vegetation on this higher ground is very scrubby with mostly heathers, gorse and ferns, similar to parts of Scotland and Wales. Some of the best honey is made by the bees that collect from this area and the land around Curral das Freiras.
Now we continued our trip northwards to Ribiero Frio, where the itinerary had a short walk planned. No chance! By this time, it was p**ing down, so we just had a coffee stop in the village, which is no more that a dozen houses. It does have a trout farm so we had a quick look at that then into the warm hostelry for a lovely cup of coffee beside an open log fire. There were lots of walkers around who had given up and were awaiting transport. Who wants to come to Madeira to walk in the rain when you can stay at home and do it more cheaply!
The next stage of the tour was continuing north up and down the San Roque de Faial valley, where we left the narrow main road and set off down an extremely winding single track, between houses (some were really only huts or hovels) all with terraced gardens growing all kinds of vegetables and fruit. There were some very nice properties interspersed with the hovels. Josef told us that these were mainly built by returning immigrants, many from Venezuela, but some from Russia and Eastern Europe.
A short history lesson now, so you can miss this bit out if you like! According to Josef, in 1931 the islanders rebelled against Salazar who tried to drain the island’s resources for his own gain. As a punishment, when Salazar, a fascist, became Portugal’s Prime Minister in 1939, he virtually abandoned Madeira and left the Madeirans to their own devices. Many emigrated during the 48 years of his “reign” to Venezuela, South Africa and Australia. When the army staged a coup in 1974 and the fascists were ousted from power, these emigrants started returning to Madeira and families who had been left behind. Many of these now are recultivating land that had been allowed to go wild. You can see from the overgrown terracing how much was once there. With all this new produce, Madeira now is self sufficient in nearly all the fruit and vegetables consumed and mainly it is the women who look after the gardens.
Forestation on the hills here is mostly eucalyptus, brought in from Australia and thriving on the island. The trees are only used for telegraph poles as the wood is too brittle to be used for much else.
At Faial on the north coast, we stopped at a viewpoint which was once a small fort protecting the inhabitants from the pirate raids. Faial is built in the shadow of a huge outcrop called Eagle Rock and the viewpoint is on a promontory opposite the rock. As we have come to expect, the views were amazing – yes, it had stopped raining and we could see in the distance again! We were due to have lunch there, so put in our orders, then set off northwest to the “city” of Santana. The largest settlements on the island have been given “city” status in order to be able to claim funding from the EU for the interconnecting roads and tunnels that have transformed the transport system. Pictures of Santana always show their traditional “A”shaped thatched cottages, so we were expecting to see lots of them. Not so! We saw about a dozen altogether, and could only get into 2 of them.
One belongs to a Madeiran who emigrated to Venezuela and when he returned to reclaim the property he’d left behind, he lived in the A frame house while he was building a more modern one at the rear. The A frame house still retains the original furniture from that time, and looks as though it’s still being lived in. (In fact, judging from the smell in the tiny bathroom, it just might be!!). We gave him a contribution, in return for which he gave us a drink of very potent home made coffee liqueur and a biscuit, then insisted on showing us round his garden, which was actually fascinating. All kinds of plants were crammed in so that wherever you looked, there was something different. He had lots of beautiful orchids, including a tiny flowered one which had the most delicious scent. Unfortunately, due to the language barrier, we couldn’t find out what it was called apart from “orchid”! He had a custard apple tree in one corner and gave us a large custard apple from it, which he said would be ready to eat in 2 days – so I’ll let you know the verdict!
The other “house” we could enter, was one of an immaculate pair, landscaped prettily and looking almost brand new. This was set up as a workshop for a lady who weaves traditional Madeiran cloths on a hand loom, but she didn’t speak English and there was no literature either about the houses or the weaving, so I was disappointed. Apart from that, we saw nothing in Santana of interest. As with many of the smaller villages, poverty is quite prevalent with many empty and derelict houses, and land left wild.
Back on the road to Faial, we took the recently constructed new road through one of the innumerable tunnels. According to Josef, there are 146 tunnels here, with more planned. Lunch was at the Restaurant Grutas where we had pre-ordered meat as our main course. Fish was brought instead, so there was a short wait while they cooked our steaks, but they were very good when they did arrive. The restaurant is inside a cave – warm in winter, “fresh” in summer as it was described to us. We had traditional cabbage soup for starters (delicious) and what we thought was a crème caramel (CC) for afters. Tom loves CC so tucked in with gusto – for one mouthful!! It looked like CC, it even smelt like CC, but it tasted like it was made with something like semolina, quite stodgy and with a very strange tasting sauce, which I think may have been passion fruit as there’s a lot of that here.
Having been satisfactorily filled with food and wine, we took yet another winding road to Porto da Cruz where we stopped at a viewpoint to look back at the other face of Eagle Rock. An attempt was made here to persuade us to buy plants and seeds at some roadside stalls – the stallholders were quite pushy and we think Josef had an arrangement with them, as he dropped us off by the viewpoint then drove to the other side of the stalls, forcing us to make our way past them. We did buy some strelitzia (bird of Paradise) seeds, as we had already decided we’d like to try growing some in the conservatory. They tried to persuade us to buy all sorts of other seeds, bulbs and plants, but we weren’t interested, so they weren’t very happy about it. Tough!
Back in the bus again and on to Portela, the gateway between north and south. Then on to Machico on the east coast, where we went round the town to the north and east to a lookout point where we could see the Airport and the only bit of real sand, which Josef said has been imported from Morocco. We watched a couple of planes take off after which we drove north to Canical, where the new container port and Industrial area has been built. All container ships used to come into Funchal harbour, and there was a huge container park right in the centre of the city, with lorries continually loading and unloading right where the cruise ships docked. The decision was made to move the commercial port to Canical, which has a sheltered location. It had the dual advantage of freeing Funchal from the heavy lorry traffic and providing employment in a very impoverished area. Canical used to be the whaling centre and with the ban on whaling, there were no alternative jobs so unemployment was rife. 5 years ago the port was opened and an entire new industrial area has built up around it. This forms the eastern end of the system of new roads and tunnels serving the north and south and with the planned extensions of infrastructure at the west end, there will eventually be a complete loop around the island.
Our last part of the sight seeing day was to drive out almost as far east as you can drive on the island, to the Sao Lourenco peninsula where we were treated to spectacular views along north and south coasts.
Driving back on the Via Rapida to Funchal, you pass under the extended runway of the airport, built on 172 concrete stilts as they had already used all of the available land. According to Josef, there has only been one aircraft accident on Madeira (before the runway was extended) caused by a pilot attempting an approach in visibility below minimum. Over 100 people lost their lives when the plane hit the vertical lip at the end of the runway, broke apart and fell into the sea. Only 2 people were saved, a baby and a young boy, who still lives on the island but has never recovered from the trauma of losing his entire family in the crash. We’ve bought postcards of the airport with the extension clearly visible, and as Tom says, he would not wish to lose an engine at a critical stage as there is NO room to manoeuvre. Left or right, you choose the rock face OR the ocean! No wonder our pilot wouldn’t attempt the landing in less that 5km visibility.
As the traffic was heavy, Josef came off the Via Rapido and wended our way back via the old roads, seeing a little more of the old Funchal on the way. It was a long and interesting day, marred only by the fact that we couldn’t go on our walk and we couldn’t see the stunning views from Pico de Arriero that are shown in the guide books. No dinner tonight – we’re still stuffed from lunch – and I wonder what the stroppy German lady did all day?!?
Our first stop was Camacha (700m), which is the basket weaving centre. Here it was quite chilly but still sunny. In the factory, we watched 3 men and 1 woman making different items – as with all experts, they made it look so simple. There were lots of pieces I really liked, but with luggage space at a premium, I only bought 2 small baskets. Much of the furniture in the showroom is made by expert weavers from their homes in the town, and in the summer months, tourists can see them working in the back streets. Camacha is the first place in Portugal where football was played. In 1875, the English son of a local resident brought a football back from his public school, and taught others how to play. A garden now stands where this first pitch was with only a commemorative plaque to mark the spot.
The island is now football mad, and has 2 teams who play in the Portuguese Premier League. They have to fly to Portugal for all their away games, and the other Portuguese teams have to fly to the island for the home games. As they share the very modern stadium that has recently been built, they take it in turns to play, so there is a home game every week.
After Camacha, we went off the main roads westward onto rough country roads lined with acacia and mimosa trees, which have only started to bloom, but already look very pretty. (I know they have yellow flowers and you know that isn’t my favourite colour, but, yes, they do look very pretty in their natural settings!) The roads are rough because further up the hill, there is a soil treatment plant. This soil from the fertile upper slopes is cleaned and sent in huge lorries down to all the public gardens all over the island. As soon as we passed this plant, the road improved. We were now climbing into the start of the clouds but as yet they were thin and didn’t detract from the views.
On the far side of the valley were what I thought were a lot of dead trees. These are young sweet chestnut trees and they do not start to produce foliage until February. After they are harvested in October, a Chestnut Festival is held. We had a piece of chestnut cake yesterday when we stopped at Curral and the Madeirans also make a strong liqueur from the nuts.
The trees around us now were smaller firs and more acacia and mimosa. Still climbing, we reached Poiso at 1413m, then climbed further, now in low cloud so we couldn’t see anything much, to Pico de Areiro, 1818m. There are meant to be fantastic views over most of the centre of Madeira from here, but we had to take Josef’s word for this as we could only see about 20m in front of us!
As this is a dead end road, we turned and drove back down to Poiso. The vegetation on this higher ground is very scrubby with mostly heathers, gorse and ferns, similar to parts of Scotland and Wales. Some of the best honey is made by the bees that collect from this area and the land around Curral das Freiras.
Now we continued our trip northwards to Ribiero Frio, where the itinerary had a short walk planned. No chance! By this time, it was p**ing down, so we just had a coffee stop in the village, which is no more that a dozen houses. It does have a trout farm so we had a quick look at that then into the warm hostelry for a lovely cup of coffee beside an open log fire. There were lots of walkers around who had given up and were awaiting transport. Who wants to come to Madeira to walk in the rain when you can stay at home and do it more cheaply!
The next stage of the tour was continuing north up and down the San Roque de Faial valley, where we left the narrow main road and set off down an extremely winding single track, between houses (some were really only huts or hovels) all with terraced gardens growing all kinds of vegetables and fruit. There were some very nice properties interspersed with the hovels. Josef told us that these were mainly built by returning immigrants, many from Venezuela, but some from Russia and Eastern Europe.
A short history lesson now, so you can miss this bit out if you like! According to Josef, in 1931 the islanders rebelled against Salazar who tried to drain the island’s resources for his own gain. As a punishment, when Salazar, a fascist, became Portugal’s Prime Minister in 1939, he virtually abandoned Madeira and left the Madeirans to their own devices. Many emigrated during the 48 years of his “reign” to Venezuela, South Africa and Australia. When the army staged a coup in 1974 and the fascists were ousted from power, these emigrants started returning to Madeira and families who had been left behind. Many of these now are recultivating land that had been allowed to go wild. You can see from the overgrown terracing how much was once there. With all this new produce, Madeira now is self sufficient in nearly all the fruit and vegetables consumed and mainly it is the women who look after the gardens.
Forestation on the hills here is mostly eucalyptus, brought in from Australia and thriving on the island. The trees are only used for telegraph poles as the wood is too brittle to be used for much else.
At Faial on the north coast, we stopped at a viewpoint which was once a small fort protecting the inhabitants from the pirate raids. Faial is built in the shadow of a huge outcrop called Eagle Rock and the viewpoint is on a promontory opposite the rock. As we have come to expect, the views were amazing – yes, it had stopped raining and we could see in the distance again! We were due to have lunch there, so put in our orders, then set off northwest to the “city” of Santana. The largest settlements on the island have been given “city” status in order to be able to claim funding from the EU for the interconnecting roads and tunnels that have transformed the transport system. Pictures of Santana always show their traditional “A”shaped thatched cottages, so we were expecting to see lots of them. Not so! We saw about a dozen altogether, and could only get into 2 of them.
One belongs to a Madeiran who emigrated to Venezuela and when he returned to reclaim the property he’d left behind, he lived in the A frame house while he was building a more modern one at the rear. The A frame house still retains the original furniture from that time, and looks as though it’s still being lived in. (In fact, judging from the smell in the tiny bathroom, it just might be!!). We gave him a contribution, in return for which he gave us a drink of very potent home made coffee liqueur and a biscuit, then insisted on showing us round his garden, which was actually fascinating. All kinds of plants were crammed in so that wherever you looked, there was something different. He had lots of beautiful orchids, including a tiny flowered one which had the most delicious scent. Unfortunately, due to the language barrier, we couldn’t find out what it was called apart from “orchid”! He had a custard apple tree in one corner and gave us a large custard apple from it, which he said would be ready to eat in 2 days – so I’ll let you know the verdict!
The other “house” we could enter, was one of an immaculate pair, landscaped prettily and looking almost brand new. This was set up as a workshop for a lady who weaves traditional Madeiran cloths on a hand loom, but she didn’t speak English and there was no literature either about the houses or the weaving, so I was disappointed. Apart from that, we saw nothing in Santana of interest. As with many of the smaller villages, poverty is quite prevalent with many empty and derelict houses, and land left wild.
Back on the road to Faial, we took the recently constructed new road through one of the innumerable tunnels. According to Josef, there are 146 tunnels here, with more planned. Lunch was at the Restaurant Grutas where we had pre-ordered meat as our main course. Fish was brought instead, so there was a short wait while they cooked our steaks, but they were very good when they did arrive. The restaurant is inside a cave – warm in winter, “fresh” in summer as it was described to us. We had traditional cabbage soup for starters (delicious) and what we thought was a crème caramel (CC) for afters. Tom loves CC so tucked in with gusto – for one mouthful!! It looked like CC, it even smelt like CC, but it tasted like it was made with something like semolina, quite stodgy and with a very strange tasting sauce, which I think may have been passion fruit as there’s a lot of that here.
Having been satisfactorily filled with food and wine, we took yet another winding road to Porto da Cruz where we stopped at a viewpoint to look back at the other face of Eagle Rock. An attempt was made here to persuade us to buy plants and seeds at some roadside stalls – the stallholders were quite pushy and we think Josef had an arrangement with them, as he dropped us off by the viewpoint then drove to the other side of the stalls, forcing us to make our way past them. We did buy some strelitzia (bird of Paradise) seeds, as we had already decided we’d like to try growing some in the conservatory. They tried to persuade us to buy all sorts of other seeds, bulbs and plants, but we weren’t interested, so they weren’t very happy about it. Tough!
Back in the bus again and on to Portela, the gateway between north and south. Then on to Machico on the east coast, where we went round the town to the north and east to a lookout point where we could see the Airport and the only bit of real sand, which Josef said has been imported from Morocco. We watched a couple of planes take off after which we drove north to Canical, where the new container port and Industrial area has been built. All container ships used to come into Funchal harbour, and there was a huge container park right in the centre of the city, with lorries continually loading and unloading right where the cruise ships docked. The decision was made to move the commercial port to Canical, which has a sheltered location. It had the dual advantage of freeing Funchal from the heavy lorry traffic and providing employment in a very impoverished area. Canical used to be the whaling centre and with the ban on whaling, there were no alternative jobs so unemployment was rife. 5 years ago the port was opened and an entire new industrial area has built up around it. This forms the eastern end of the system of new roads and tunnels serving the north and south and with the planned extensions of infrastructure at the west end, there will eventually be a complete loop around the island.
Our last part of the sight seeing day was to drive out almost as far east as you can drive on the island, to the Sao Lourenco peninsula where we were treated to spectacular views along north and south coasts.
Driving back on the Via Rapida to Funchal, you pass under the extended runway of the airport, built on 172 concrete stilts as they had already used all of the available land. According to Josef, there has only been one aircraft accident on Madeira (before the runway was extended) caused by a pilot attempting an approach in visibility below minimum. Over 100 people lost their lives when the plane hit the vertical lip at the end of the runway, broke apart and fell into the sea. Only 2 people were saved, a baby and a young boy, who still lives on the island but has never recovered from the trauma of losing his entire family in the crash. We’ve bought postcards of the airport with the extension clearly visible, and as Tom says, he would not wish to lose an engine at a critical stage as there is NO room to manoeuvre. Left or right, you choose the rock face OR the ocean! No wonder our pilot wouldn’t attempt the landing in less that 5km visibility.
As the traffic was heavy, Josef came off the Via Rapido and wended our way back via the old roads, seeing a little more of the old Funchal on the way. It was a long and interesting day, marred only by the fact that we couldn’t go on our walk and we couldn’t see the stunning views from Pico de Arriero that are shown in the guide books. No dinner tonight – we’re still stuffed from lunch – and I wonder what the stroppy German lady did all day?!?
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Sunday 25 January
I can’t seem to shake off whatever is “bugging” me as I woke today feeling dizzy – and I can’t even blame a hard night on the booze! However, nothing was going to stop us going on the trip.
We were a full minibus of 8 + Andre and unfortunately, we had a real pain with us – no, NOT Tom! A registered blind man called George who should be registered as a liability. He didn’t stop talking almost the entire time except, thank goodness, when Andre was giving us information – well, most of the time anyway!
Our first stop was at a viewpoint called the Miradouro do Pico dos Barcelos, altitude 355m, giving us what Andre described as a 365 degree (!!) view over Funchal. It was a fantastic location, and lived up to his description,
although Tom moaned that he couldn’t find the missing 5 degrees – perhaps they’re on Platform 9 ¾ !! As we were enjoying the view, the bells were ringing in one of the churches on one of the hills surrounding the town They were playing Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” and pretty well too.
We then had another interesting drive up into the hills, with Andre deciding that, in order to show us the vertical drop on the opposite side of the road, he’d just drive on that side, as you do!! And guess who was sitting on that side of the bus – yes, that’s right, it was ME! The next point I remember is stopping to take in yet some more precipitous views down into a chasm, which is the valley paralleling the Socorridos river valley, which is the one leading to Curral das Freiras.
I’d better explain the story of why the village of Curral das Freiras is so called. It translates as the Nuns’ Refuge. In 1566, the Nuns of Santa Clara were fleeing from French pirates who had already murdered the Governor of Madeira and all the soldiers guarding the castle. They headed up the Socorridos River valley and took refuge in the area which is now called Curral das Freiras.
Even today, there is no road access up the river valley and the main road now goes up the parallel valley then through a tunnel into Curral. Until the 20th century, the only access was up the parallel valley to the ridge between the 2 valleys, called Eira do Serrado, from where a narrow zigzag path had been built leading down to the settlement which had sprung up at Curral. In the 20th century, a precipitous road was built leading down to Curral, but with the construction of the tunnel, this route is now closed. 
We drove up to Eira do Serrado on the old road where the views are stupendous. It’s mind-boggling how the Madeirans continue to build their houses on these almost vertical mountain sides – and there is building going on everywhere you look.
We take for granted all this flat land we have in UK and there is nothing flat HERE. Truly amazing.
After a “pee” stop at Eira, Andre asked which of us would like to do the walk, which is advertised in their brochure as being “facultative” ie. Easy! He showed us the start of the footpath and said he’d meet us at the other end in just over an hour. As George had informed us he was registered blind, we didn’t expect him to take part in the walk that was scheduled as part of today’s itinerary. But no, even though we could see that the path started off quite steeply, he was going to do it and elected himself our leader. (It turns out that he has hardly any peripheral vision but can see quite clearly straight ahead.)
Andre provided staves for those of us who didn’t have walking poles (we did) as they would help on the way. What he hadn’t told us was that the path starting at 3600ft, goes all the way to Curral,
dropping 1500ft in the process and only over half a mile horizontally. The relentless downhill slope took us an hour and a quarter,
led by George for most of the way, chivvying us “girls” and trying to round us up like a sheepdog if anyone looked as if they weren’t keeping up. Tom appointed himself as back marker so he could make sure everyone was OK
– although what we could have done if anyone did get into difficulties, I’m not sure. It was the hardest walk I’ve ever done and I did slip at one point, sat down quite hard and had difficulty getting up again. But one of the men, who hadn’t mentioned that last year, he fell and broke 3 ribs and had a back injury, was in real trouble by the time we got ¾ of the way down. He ended up walking bent over to the right by about 20 degrees, using his stick to stop him falling over.
I was very relieved to see the minibus waiting for us at the end and even more relieved when we then stopped in Curral for a very welcome coffee and cake and a loo stop! Looking back, we could see the hillside path we had just walked down.
George still hadn’t stopped yakking! I’ve decided Tom isn’t SO bad after all – George’s wife must be a saint!
Looking down the valley from Curral, you can see 2 or 3 settlements.
As I’ve already written, there is no road access up that valley from Funchal, so the only way in and out for these residents is to come all the way up to Curral, through the tunnel and down the other valley – it’s a very long way round!
Although there is no convent at Curral, occasionally an odd (!!) nun can be seen there!
The drive back through the tunnel and down the hill was uneventful and we dropped off George and party first, thank goodness, so we had a little peace and quiet on the last couple of miles. Chatting to Andre on the way back, we agreed that, as we haven’t seen the eastern part of Madeira yet, and there is space in the bus, we would join the day trip tomorrow. When we got into the hotel, Tom booked it, so it’s another early start.
We were a full minibus of 8 + Andre and unfortunately, we had a real pain with us – no, NOT Tom! A registered blind man called George who should be registered as a liability. He didn’t stop talking almost the entire time except, thank goodness, when Andre was giving us information – well, most of the time anyway!
Our first stop was at a viewpoint called the Miradouro do Pico dos Barcelos, altitude 355m, giving us what Andre described as a 365 degree (!!) view over Funchal. It was a fantastic location, and lived up to his description,
although Tom moaned that he couldn’t find the missing 5 degrees – perhaps they’re on Platform 9 ¾ !! As we were enjoying the view, the bells were ringing in one of the churches on one of the hills surrounding the town They were playing Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” and pretty well too.We then had another interesting drive up into the hills, with Andre deciding that, in order to show us the vertical drop on the opposite side of the road, he’d just drive on that side, as you do!! And guess who was sitting on that side of the bus – yes, that’s right, it was ME! The next point I remember is stopping to take in yet some more precipitous views down into a chasm, which is the valley paralleling the Socorridos river valley, which is the one leading to Curral das Freiras.
I’d better explain the story of why the village of Curral das Freiras is so called. It translates as the Nuns’ Refuge. In 1566, the Nuns of Santa Clara were fleeing from French pirates who had already murdered the Governor of Madeira and all the soldiers guarding the castle. They headed up the Socorridos River valley and took refuge in the area which is now called Curral das Freiras.
Even today, there is no road access up the river valley and the main road now goes up the parallel valley then through a tunnel into Curral. Until the 20th century, the only access was up the parallel valley to the ridge between the 2 valleys, called Eira do Serrado, from where a narrow zigzag path had been built leading down to the settlement which had sprung up at Curral. In the 20th century, a precipitous road was built leading down to Curral, but with the construction of the tunnel, this route is now closed. We drove up to Eira do Serrado on the old road where the views are stupendous. It’s mind-boggling how the Madeirans continue to build their houses on these almost vertical mountain sides – and there is building going on everywhere you look.
We take for granted all this flat land we have in UK and there is nothing flat HERE. Truly amazing.After a “pee” stop at Eira, Andre asked which of us would like to do the walk, which is advertised in their brochure as being “facultative” ie. Easy! He showed us the start of the footpath and said he’d meet us at the other end in just over an hour. As George had informed us he was registered blind, we didn’t expect him to take part in the walk that was scheduled as part of today’s itinerary. But no, even though we could see that the path started off quite steeply, he was going to do it and elected himself our leader. (It turns out that he has hardly any peripheral vision but can see quite clearly straight ahead.)
Andre provided staves for those of us who didn’t have walking poles (we did) as they would help on the way. What he hadn’t told us was that the path starting at 3600ft, goes all the way to Curral,
dropping 1500ft in the process and only over half a mile horizontally. The relentless downhill slope took us an hour and a quarter, led by George for most of the way, chivvying us “girls” and trying to round us up like a sheepdog if anyone looked as if they weren’t keeping up. Tom appointed himself as back marker so he could make sure everyone was OK – although what we could have done if anyone did get into difficulties, I’m not sure. It was the hardest walk I’ve ever done and I did slip at one point, sat down quite hard and had difficulty getting up again. But one of the men, who hadn’t mentioned that last year, he fell and broke 3 ribs and had a back injury, was in real trouble by the time we got ¾ of the way down. He ended up walking bent over to the right by about 20 degrees, using his stick to stop him falling over.I was very relieved to see the minibus waiting for us at the end and even more relieved when we then stopped in Curral for a very welcome coffee and cake and a loo stop! Looking back, we could see the hillside path we had just walked down.
George still hadn’t stopped yakking! I’ve decided Tom isn’t SO bad after all – George’s wife must be a saint!Looking down the valley from Curral, you can see 2 or 3 settlements.
As I’ve already written, there is no road access up that valley from Funchal, so the only way in and out for these residents is to come all the way up to Curral, through the tunnel and down the other valley – it’s a very long way round!Although there is no convent at Curral, occasionally an odd (!!) nun can be seen there!
The drive back through the tunnel and down the hill was uneventful and we dropped off George and party first, thank goodness, so we had a little peace and quiet on the last couple of miles. Chatting to Andre on the way back, we agreed that, as we haven’t seen the eastern part of Madeira yet, and there is space in the bus, we would join the day trip tomorrow. When we got into the hotel, Tom booked it, so it’s another early start.
Saturday 24 January
Sunshine and clouds again today – this seems to be the way of most days just now. Several times we’ve put on warmer clothes because it’s been quite cool up here, and by the time we get into town, it’s so warm, we have to take a layer off. So for any of you planning to come here, layers is definitely the answer – and a lightweight rucksack to carry around for all the spare bits!
We did the “chores” this morning (blog and the posting thereof, and the washing) and walked into town this afternoon to St Catherine’s garden,
just on the west side of the main street. A pod from one of the Kapok trees had burst and spread it’s contents over one of the lawns – it must think it’s February already. Like everywhere else, the garden is built on a slope with wonderful views over the harbour, where there was yet another cruise ship in – the Costa Serena.
After a perambulate round and an ice cream, we wandered all the way through town. As it’s Saturday, most of the shops close in the afternoon, but there was a craft market on in Avenue Arriaga, near the Palace of Sao Lourenco. There was lots of jewellery and sewn items but nothing we saw to make us buy. It was very peaceful to walk around unaccosted, although the accosting is nothing like we have experienced or hear of in other countries.
We had a chat to an old guy last night who was handing out cards for a café (the one we ate in) and he said that because the island is so dependant on tourism, with this being “low” season and the recession hitting pretty much everywhere, they are all fighting for custom. He said that for the older generation, the lack of jobs is not such a problem but for the youngsters, there’s not a lot to keep them on the island for the future. They also have a problem with immigrants from the newer EU members and also from Venezuela and Brazil.
A nice Pasteleria (cake shop to you) beckoned us in one of the precincts, so, having worked up an appetite on our garden walk, we sampled a couple, with coffee (Tom) and hot chocolate (me) while watching the locals and trying to work out what was written on a board in the café. We took a photo so that Amy can translate for us when we get home.
The courtesy coach brought us back here again at 6 o’clock. The washing’s almost dry and I’ve got my feet up on the chair while I write this as my ankles are swelling. We haven’t decided yet where to go for dinner – we’re so spoilt for choice round here – we even found an Indian restaurant just round the corner too. We’ve just watched the cruise ship sail away to who-knows-where, so I’ll finish for now and add the finishing touches later.
Evening
We ate at a little bar/restaurant just across the road and had the best steak we’ve had here – or at least, I did, as Tom had a shrimp salad, which turned out to be what we call king prawns! Anyway we were both delighted with our meals and will definitely be going back there.
An early-ish night was called on as we had to be up early for our half day trip to Curral das Freiras.
We did the “chores” this morning (blog and the posting thereof, and the washing) and walked into town this afternoon to St Catherine’s garden,
just on the west side of the main street. A pod from one of the Kapok trees had burst and spread it’s contents over one of the lawns – it must think it’s February already. Like everywhere else, the garden is built on a slope with wonderful views over the harbour, where there was yet another cruise ship in – the Costa Serena. After a perambulate round and an ice cream, we wandered all the way through town. As it’s Saturday, most of the shops close in the afternoon, but there was a craft market on in Avenue Arriaga, near the Palace of Sao Lourenco. There was lots of jewellery and sewn items but nothing we saw to make us buy. It was very peaceful to walk around unaccosted, although the accosting is nothing like we have experienced or hear of in other countries.We had a chat to an old guy last night who was handing out cards for a café (the one we ate in) and he said that because the island is so dependant on tourism, with this being “low” season and the recession hitting pretty much everywhere, they are all fighting for custom. He said that for the older generation, the lack of jobs is not such a problem but for the youngsters, there’s not a lot to keep them on the island for the future. They also have a problem with immigrants from the newer EU members and also from Venezuela and Brazil.
A nice Pasteleria (cake shop to you) beckoned us in one of the precincts, so, having worked up an appetite on our garden walk, we sampled a couple, with coffee (Tom) and hot chocolate (me) while watching the locals and trying to work out what was written on a board in the café. We took a photo so that Amy can translate for us when we get home.
The courtesy coach brought us back here again at 6 o’clock. The washing’s almost dry and I’ve got my feet up on the chair while I write this as my ankles are swelling. We haven’t decided yet where to go for dinner – we’re so spoilt for choice round here – we even found an Indian restaurant just round the corner too. We’ve just watched the cruise ship sail away to who-knows-where, so I’ll finish for now and add the finishing touches later.
Evening
We ate at a little bar/restaurant just across the road and had the best steak we’ve had here – or at least, I did, as Tom had a shrimp salad, which turned out to be what we call king prawns! Anyway we were both delighted with our meals and will definitely be going back there.
An early-ish night was called on as we had to be up early for our half day trip to Curral das Freiras.
Saturday 24 January
Sunshine and clouds again today – this seems to be the way of most days just now. Several times we’ve put on warmer clothes because it’s been quite cool up here, and by the time we get into town, it’s so warm, we have to take a layer off. So for any of you planning to come here, layers is definitely the answer – and a lightweight rucksack to carry around for all the spare bits!
We did the “chores” this morning (blog and the posting thereof, and the washing) and walked into town this afternoon to St Catherine’s garden, just on the west side of the main street. A pod from one of the Kapok trees had burst and spread it’s contents over one of the lawns – it must think it’s February already. Like everywhere else, the garden is built on a slope with wonderful views over the harbour, where there was yet another cruise ship in – the Costa Serena. After a perambulate round and an ice cream, we wandered all the way through town. As it’s Saturday, most of the shops close in the afternoon, but there was a craft market on in Avenue Arriaga, near the Palace of Sao Lourenco. There was lots of jewellery and sewn items but nothing we saw to make us buy. It was very peaceful to walk around unaccosted, although the accosting is nothing like we have experienced or hear of in other countries.
We had a chat to an old guy last night who was handing out cards for a café (the one we ate in) and he said that because the island is so dependant on tourism, with this being “low” season and the recession hitting pretty much everywhere, they are all fighting for custom. He said that for the older generation, the lack of jobs is not such a problem but for the youngsters, there’s not a lot to keep them on the island for the future. They also have a problem with immigrants from the newer EU members and also from Venezuela and Brazil.
A nice Pasteleria (cake shop to you) beckoned us in one of the precincts, so, having worked up an appetite on our garden walk, we sampled a couple, with coffee (Tom) and hot chocolate (me) while watching the locals and trying to work out what was written on a board in the café. We took a photo so that Amy can translate for us when we get home.
The courtesy coach brought us back here again at 6 o’clock. The washing’s almost dry and I’ve got my feet up on the chair while I write this as my ankles are swelling. We haven’t decided yet where to go for dinner – we’re so spoilt for choice round here – we even found an Indian restaurant just round the corner too. We’ve just watched the cruise ship sail away to who-knows-where, so I’ll finish for now and add the finishing touches later.
Evening
We ate at a little bar/restaurant just across the road and had the best steak we’ve had here – or at least, I did, as Tom had a shrimp salad, which turned out to be what we call king prawns! Anyway we were both delighted with our meals and will definitely be going back there.
An early-ish night was called on as we had to be up early for our half day trip to Curral das Freiras.
We did the “chores” this morning (blog and the posting thereof, and the washing) and walked into town this afternoon to St Catherine’s garden, just on the west side of the main street. A pod from one of the Kapok trees had burst and spread it’s contents over one of the lawns – it must think it’s February already. Like everywhere else, the garden is built on a slope with wonderful views over the harbour, where there was yet another cruise ship in – the Costa Serena. After a perambulate round and an ice cream, we wandered all the way through town. As it’s Saturday, most of the shops close in the afternoon, but there was a craft market on in Avenue Arriaga, near the Palace of Sao Lourenco. There was lots of jewellery and sewn items but nothing we saw to make us buy. It was very peaceful to walk around unaccosted, although the accosting is nothing like we have experienced or hear of in other countries.
We had a chat to an old guy last night who was handing out cards for a café (the one we ate in) and he said that because the island is so dependant on tourism, with this being “low” season and the recession hitting pretty much everywhere, they are all fighting for custom. He said that for the older generation, the lack of jobs is not such a problem but for the youngsters, there’s not a lot to keep them on the island for the future. They also have a problem with immigrants from the newer EU members and also from Venezuela and Brazil.
A nice Pasteleria (cake shop to you) beckoned us in one of the precincts, so, having worked up an appetite on our garden walk, we sampled a couple, with coffee (Tom) and hot chocolate (me) while watching the locals and trying to work out what was written on a board in the café. We took a photo so that Amy can translate for us when we get home.
The courtesy coach brought us back here again at 6 o’clock. The washing’s almost dry and I’ve got my feet up on the chair while I write this as my ankles are swelling. We haven’t decided yet where to go for dinner – we’re so spoilt for choice round here – we even found an Indian restaurant just round the corner too. We’ve just watched the cruise ship sail away to who-knows-where, so I’ll finish for now and add the finishing touches later.
Evening
We ate at a little bar/restaurant just across the road and had the best steak we’ve had here – or at least, I did, as Tom had a shrimp salad, which turned out to be what we call king prawns! Anyway we were both delighted with our meals and will definitely be going back there.
An early-ish night was called on as we had to be up early for our half day trip to Curral das Freiras.
Saturday 24 January
Sunshine and clouds again today – this seems to be the way of most days just now. Several times we’ve put on warmer clothes because it’s been quite cool up here, and by the time we get into town, it’s so warm, we have to take a layer off. So for any of you planning to come here, layers is definitely the answer – and a lightweight rucksack to carry around for all the spare bits!
We did the “chores” this morning (blog and the posting thereof, and the washing) and walked into town this afternoon to St Catherine’s garden, just on the west side of the main street. A pod from one of the Kapok trees had burst and spread it’s contents over one of the lawns – it must think it’s February already. Like everywhere else, the garden is built on a slope with wonderful views over the harbour, where there was yet another cruise ship in – the Costa Serena. After a perambulate round and an ice cream, we wandered all the way through town. As it’s Saturday, most of the shops close in the afternoon, but there was a craft market on in Avenue Arriaga, near the Palace of Sao Lourenco. There was lots of jewellery and sewn items but nothing we saw to make us buy. It was very peaceful to walk around unaccosted, although the accosting is nothing like we have experienced or hear of in other countries.
We had a chat to an old guy last night who was handing out cards for a café (the one we ate in) and he said that because the island is so dependant on tourism, with this being “low” season and the recession hitting pretty much everywhere, they are all fighting for custom. He said that for the older generation, the lack of jobs is not such a problem but for the youngsters, there’s not a lot to keep them on the island for the future. They also have a problem with immigrants from the newer EU members and also from Venezuela and Brazil.
A nice Pasteleria (cake shop to you) beckoned us in one of the precincts, so, having worked up an appetite on our garden walk, we sampled a couple, with coffee (Tom) and hot chocolate (me) while watching the locals and trying to work out what was written on a board in the café. We took a photo so that Amy can translate for us when we get home.
The courtesy coach brought us back here again at 6 o’clock. The washing’s almost dry and I’ve got my feet up on the chair while I write this as my ankles are swelling. We haven’t decided yet where to go for dinner – we’re so spoilt for choice round here – we even found an Indian restaurant just round the corner too. We’ve just watched the cruise ship sail away to who-knows-where, so I’ll finish for now and add the finishing touches later.
Evening
We ate at a little bar/restaurant just across the road and had the best steak we’ve had here – or at least, I did, as Tom had a shrimp salad, which turned out to be what we call king prawns! Anyway we were both delighted with our meals and will definitely be going back there.
An early-ish night was called on as we had to be up early for our half day trip to Curral das Freiras.
We did the “chores” this morning (blog and the posting thereof, and the washing) and walked into town this afternoon to St Catherine’s garden, just on the west side of the main street. A pod from one of the Kapok trees had burst and spread it’s contents over one of the lawns – it must think it’s February already. Like everywhere else, the garden is built on a slope with wonderful views over the harbour, where there was yet another cruise ship in – the Costa Serena. After a perambulate round and an ice cream, we wandered all the way through town. As it’s Saturday, most of the shops close in the afternoon, but there was a craft market on in Avenue Arriaga, near the Palace of Sao Lourenco. There was lots of jewellery and sewn items but nothing we saw to make us buy. It was very peaceful to walk around unaccosted, although the accosting is nothing like we have experienced or hear of in other countries.
We had a chat to an old guy last night who was handing out cards for a café (the one we ate in) and he said that because the island is so dependant on tourism, with this being “low” season and the recession hitting pretty much everywhere, they are all fighting for custom. He said that for the older generation, the lack of jobs is not such a problem but for the youngsters, there’s not a lot to keep them on the island for the future. They also have a problem with immigrants from the newer EU members and also from Venezuela and Brazil.
A nice Pasteleria (cake shop to you) beckoned us in one of the precincts, so, having worked up an appetite on our garden walk, we sampled a couple, with coffee (Tom) and hot chocolate (me) while watching the locals and trying to work out what was written on a board in the café. We took a photo so that Amy can translate for us when we get home.
The courtesy coach brought us back here again at 6 o’clock. The washing’s almost dry and I’ve got my feet up on the chair while I write this as my ankles are swelling. We haven’t decided yet where to go for dinner – we’re so spoilt for choice round here – we even found an Indian restaurant just round the corner too. We’ve just watched the cruise ship sail away to who-knows-where, so I’ll finish for now and add the finishing touches later.
Evening
We ate at a little bar/restaurant just across the road and had the best steak we’ve had here – or at least, I did, as Tom had a shrimp salad, which turned out to be what we call king prawns! Anyway we were both delighted with our meals and will definitely be going back there.
An early-ish night was called on as we had to be up early for our half day trip to Curral das Freiras.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Friday 23 January
Tom reminded me to tell you that, having had a three course lunch yesterday, which we’re not used to, a sandwich would do us for dinner So we walked down to the big supermarket to buy the makings of such, then we had to walk back up 110 proper size steps just to get back to lower street level. (Tom’s note – there are two supermarkets in that area. One is about 50 yards further, but on the flat. Maggie decided to go for the closer one!); then a steep slope up to Rua de Casa Branca where the hotel is and THEN up the 150 shallower steps to the hotel entrance! I think we can safely say that we had good exercise.
After yesterday’s exertions, and having woken up with a sore throat AGAIN, AND the weather looked decidedly dull, we thought we’d have another lazy day. The blog took ages anyway as I had to keep referring to the map and the photos we’d taken so I didn’t miss out anything.
In the afternoon we walked to the internet café and Tom posted the blog for your entertainment and checked the e-mails while I wandered and bought some postcards – not to send, so don’t expect any. Then we changed and caught the bus into Funchal. We had time to spare, so had a pleasant walk along the seafront, passing the boat the Beatles used to own,
(now a floating restaurant) and then wandered around the streets and alleys. 
We ate at a little café in one of the backstreets where the food was really good and very reasonably priced. Then it was time to make our way to the English Church where we had tickets to attend a Mandolin concert. Madeira’s Mandolin, or Bandolin in Portuguese, orchestra is the oldest of its kind in Europe and also has some of the youngest players. The youngest last night was 10.
The orchestra was composed of sections similar to a string orchestra, with 3 different sections of Bandolins , 1 section of Bandoletas, 1 of Bandolas (bigger still), Bandoloncelos , 5 guitars and 1 Guitarrom (equating to violins, violas, slightly bigger violas, guitar and double cello,)
The orchestra’s conductor, Eurico Martins, who is also their director and music arranger, was ill so they played with no conductor, a difficult enough feat for even a mature orchestra, never mind one as young as this. The Leader, who was the lead guitarist, conducted from his position.
Not knowing quite what to expect, we were amazed to find it was one of the most enjoyable concerts we’ve been to. We knew all the items on the programme, which varied from the Skaters’ Waltz to “O Sole Mio” and “Winter” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. The young soloist for “Winter” was Andre Martins, the son of the conductor and he was fantastic. He is only in his early teens but his ability can only get better. He looked so amazed at the applause he got at the end of the piece and again at the end of the concert.
It was enough to bring tears to the eyes. Their final piece was Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, a very intricate and difficult piece, but apart from a slight hesitation in timing at one point, they performed it extremely well..
We bought one of their CD’s on the way out and came away feeling quite elated with our evening of “culture. The orchestra has performed all over Europe and is coming to England in July. If any of you are interested, their website is http://www.orquestrabandolinsmadeira.com/
And now it’s time to leave you for the night – “see” you tomorrow!
After yesterday’s exertions, and having woken up with a sore throat AGAIN, AND the weather looked decidedly dull, we thought we’d have another lazy day. The blog took ages anyway as I had to keep referring to the map and the photos we’d taken so I didn’t miss out anything.
In the afternoon we walked to the internet café and Tom posted the blog for your entertainment and checked the e-mails while I wandered and bought some postcards – not to send, so don’t expect any. Then we changed and caught the bus into Funchal. We had time to spare, so had a pleasant walk along the seafront, passing the boat the Beatles used to own,
(now a floating restaurant) and then wandered around the streets and alleys. We ate at a little café in one of the backstreets where the food was really good and very reasonably priced. Then it was time to make our way to the English Church where we had tickets to attend a Mandolin concert. Madeira’s Mandolin, or Bandolin in Portuguese, orchestra is the oldest of its kind in Europe and also has some of the youngest players. The youngest last night was 10.
The orchestra was composed of sections similar to a string orchestra, with 3 different sections of Bandolins , 1 section of Bandoletas, 1 of Bandolas (bigger still), Bandoloncelos , 5 guitars and 1 Guitarrom (equating to violins, violas, slightly bigger violas, guitar and double cello,)The orchestra’s conductor, Eurico Martins, who is also their director and music arranger, was ill so they played with no conductor, a difficult enough feat for even a mature orchestra, never mind one as young as this. The Leader, who was the lead guitarist, conducted from his position.
Not knowing quite what to expect, we were amazed to find it was one of the most enjoyable concerts we’ve been to. We knew all the items on the programme, which varied from the Skaters’ Waltz to “O Sole Mio” and “Winter” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. The young soloist for “Winter” was Andre Martins, the son of the conductor and he was fantastic. He is only in his early teens but his ability can only get better. He looked so amazed at the applause he got at the end of the piece and again at the end of the concert.
It was enough to bring tears to the eyes. Their final piece was Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, a very intricate and difficult piece, but apart from a slight hesitation in timing at one point, they performed it extremely well..We bought one of their CD’s on the way out and came away feeling quite elated with our evening of “culture. The orchestra has performed all over Europe and is coming to England in July. If any of you are interested, their website is http://www.orquestrabandolinsmadeira.com/
And now it’s time to leave you for the night – “see” you tomorrow!
Friday, January 23, 2009
Thursday 22 January
We saw the sun rise this morning, and very pretty it was too, but 6.45 is not a civilised time when you’re on holiday! We were down for breakfast at 7.30 and were quite surprised to see so many other people – not the faces we normally see at 9.30!
We were all ready and waiting for our minibus at 8.10 as we’d been told that with multiple pick-ups, it would arrive any time between 8.10 and 8.45. So we waited and waited…..and waited. At 9.00, I asked reception to check if the tour had been cancelled but was told the bus was definitely on its way. It did arrive a few minutes later and we were his first pick up. In the course of conversation, it turned out that the hotel had given us the wrong times – we should have been told 8.50 – 9.00am!! So a good start to the day!
It was a 7 seater minibus and we picked up 3 more Brits and 2 Swedes and off we set. The driver, who told us later that his name was Andre Agassi (!!), was a real character and made the day memorable. For those of you following this with a map, or have personal experience of Madeira, we drove along the coast road to the west, to the fishing village of Camara do Lobos where Winston Churchill used to visit regularly, to sketch and paint.
They are very proud of their connection to him. There’s a Churchill’s Place café and bar with a huge photograph of him on the outside wall, showing him painting looking over the harbour.
Then it was on to Cabo Girao, one of the highest sea cliffs in Europe. There is a viewing platform built out over the cliff, and I even managed to look down, and didn’t feel TOO terrified, even though it is 580m virtually straight down to the shore, where the small area between cliff and sea is cultivated in a neat pattern, looking very picturesque.
In an exhibition room is a brief history and photographs of some of the famous people who used to stay in Madeira – Churchill, George Bernard Shaw and Emperor Charles I of Austria. There is a cable car going down to the beach, but thankfully, this was not part of the day’s activities!
On we went to Campanario named after the rock out in the sea which looks like a bell, then on to Ribiera Brava, where the driver’s mother was born. This, like most of the villages round the coast, is surrounded by great hills with some construction still going on, on what looks like inaccessible land. It’s a very pretty place and we had good coffee in a little café by the sea wall.
Most of the roads we drove along to reach these places are accessible only to cars and small vehicles, so we saw places that larger tour buses would have not have taken us. Some of them are very scary but our driver was so laid back and obviously so familiar with them that the fear factor was largely removed! The slopes have to be seen to be believed but the views were just stunning. Looking down from some of the slopes above Campanario, we could see the new coast road that has been built in the last 8 years. As there is so little land space, some of it has been built as viaducts out over the ocean, a very impressive sight from above.
From Ribiera Brava, we turned inland and cut up through the centre of the island on another stretch of relatively new road, through tunnels built straight through the mountains. Andre explained that the tunnel road surfaces were quite uneven, as, when the tunnels were built, they used horseshoe shaped concrete linings, and insufficient thought was given to the forces to which they would be subject. The result is that, although most of the upper parts of the tunnels are strong enough to withstand the pressures exerted by the vast weights of rock overhead, the bases are being forced up.
Our next stop was Sao Vicente, on the north coast where the residents were preparing for the Feast of Sao Vicente. The village looked very pretty with its decoration of flowers and streamers and the smell of the wood being prepared as charcoal for the barbecues was enough to make us feel hungry. Before we went off for a little explore, Andre took our orders for lunch (in Porto Moniz, top left of Madeira). The church in the centre of Sao Vicente is truly beautiful inside, quite small but intricately decorated with paintings all over the walls and ceiling.
As we returned to the bus, a small van drew up beside us – the pyrotechnic “expert” for the evening’s festivities. We were just about to get aboard once more, when this “expert” set off 5 huge rockets no more than 6ft away from us!! He simply stood the stalks on the ground, held the rocket in his hand at about head height, lit the fuse and let them go once the rocket fired – hundreds of feet into the air and the bangs were tremendous. I don’t think ‘elf ‘n’safety would have been enamoured of him! We don’t know whether it was just a signal to everyone that he’d arrived, or for our benefit as visiting tourists.
However, suitably entertained, we drove on along the north coast road towards Porto Moniz. The ocean here is so different from the south. The waves are enormous and most of the view is obscured by a fine salt mist. Spray from the breaking waves continually hit the bus, yet there are houses along the road – how they manage to keep anything dry is a puzzle. This road has also been replaced in recent years with a new one tunnelled through the rocks, and also suffering the same problems as before. In some places here, there is also cracking of the tunnel walls – NOT such a good sign – and water is leaking in. The old road here was quite spectacular – one of the other English ladies, who has been visiting Madeira for 14 years, had driven along it. It was not for the faint hearted - single lane with occasional passing places, cut out of the cliffs and only protected on the ocean side by a low wall.
Not long after Sao Vicente, Andre stopped and let us out to walk along a short stretch of the road so we could photograph 2 of the highest waterfalls on this side of the island.
We could see ahead of us the village of Seixal
and the town of Porto Moniz, all shrouded by the spray, but caught in rays of sunshine. Just before Seixal, we stopped to photograph the Bride’s Veil waterfall, dropping straight into the ocean. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get near enough as the old road has been cut off by a huge landslip.
There were some very good tourist stalls here and the prices were cheaper than in many of the other places we’ve been. Tom bought a lovely sweater, all greens and dark greys – too warm for here, but it’ll be lovely back home.
On we went, stopping briefly in Seixal before arriving in Porto Moniz, ravenous. Our café overlooked the ocean so we were treated to wonderful breaking waves while we ate. Lunch was excellent – Madeiran cabbage soup; either tuna, scabbard fish or steak (all very good and large portions) for main course, followed by fresh fruit salad then coffee. We had red and white wine and could have had more if we wished, but we all wanted to go out and enjoy the ocean views.
Suitable refreshed, we set off once again, straight up the side of the hills – or so it seemed! If we’d thought the roads we’d travelled on this morning were winding, we had to think again! There were quite a few indrawn breaths as we negotiated some of the bends, much to Andre’s amusement. We stopped briefly for a bird’s eye view of Porto Moniz, looking just like a child’s play mat,
then we climbed further up to the road over the central plateau – and here we drove into cloud. So there were no views, which was a disappointment. We climbed to a height of 1418m to the Pico das Urzes where we were given the choice of doing a short levada walk. 6 of us decided we would, despite the cloud and cold so we all bundled up and walked for half an hour to meet up with the minibus again.
The sun actually came out while we walked – but only on one side, the other was still shrouded in cloud. It WAS a bit damp and the breeze was chilly, but by the time we reached the bus, we were pleased we’d done it.
Driving on over the Paul da Serra (1500m), we were again in cloud and passed the wind farms there at Bica da Cana (1620m) where Andre showed us a video he had taken on Tuesday this week of SNOW on the road! They do get it occasionally.
As we started to make our way back down the mountains, Andre pointed ahead of us to where we could see the highest peaks of Madeira – Pico das Torres (1851m) and Pico Ruivo (1862m) – only the tops could be seen above the clouds.
We won’t be going there!
On the descent, he showed us the channels that collect the condensation from the clouds and feed the water down to huge pipes, the contents of which are used by the hydro-electric plant. After it has gone through the plant, the water is fed into another network of levadas to irrigate the land below. We drove on the wrong side of the road so we could experience driving through a waterfall, which was also good for cleaning the bus! The mud streaked black car following us had exactly the same idea!
This stretch of road is subject to many rock falls as we saw from the very dented barriers beside the road, but we were fortunate enough NOT to have any fall on us. Through more small tunnels, where the road surface is appalling due to the vast amounts of water that continually pour down it, we descended to Encumeada where we stopped for a glass of Poncha, a very Madeiran drink of fresh lemon juice, honey and white rum. WOW!! It certainly clears the tubes – a bit like drinking Vick vapour rub, Tom said. One small glass was quite enough! The levada here was the far end of the one we had been walking along earlier, but by now had collected several others en-route and was somewhat larger.
At this point it disappeared into a pipe, and went on its way downhill.
Then it was back in the bus
for the last, fast ride back to our hotels – joining the rush hour traffic. It was a fantastic day out. Tom didn’t feel car sick at any point, even with the winding roads, I think because we stopped so often and he had plenty of fresh air, but also because the ride was bumpy rather than floaty. Our driver was very knowledgeable both about Madeira, its history and stories, and about the vegetation, plants and the land formations. We found out from him that the trees outside our room are kapok trees. The pods we likened to avocados, burst in February releasing the kapok into the air. The angel statue we saw earlier in the holiday (when we did our first levada walk) is a memorial to all the men who died during the building of the original island infrastructure.
We were all ready and waiting for our minibus at 8.10 as we’d been told that with multiple pick-ups, it would arrive any time between 8.10 and 8.45. So we waited and waited…..and waited. At 9.00, I asked reception to check if the tour had been cancelled but was told the bus was definitely on its way. It did arrive a few minutes later and we were his first pick up. In the course of conversation, it turned out that the hotel had given us the wrong times – we should have been told 8.50 – 9.00am!! So a good start to the day!
It was a 7 seater minibus and we picked up 3 more Brits and 2 Swedes and off we set. The driver, who told us later that his name was Andre Agassi (!!), was a real character and made the day memorable. For those of you following this with a map, or have personal experience of Madeira, we drove along the coast road to the west, to the fishing village of Camara do Lobos where Winston Churchill used to visit regularly, to sketch and paint.
They are very proud of their connection to him. There’s a Churchill’s Place café and bar with a huge photograph of him on the outside wall, showing him painting looking over the harbour.Then it was on to Cabo Girao, one of the highest sea cliffs in Europe. There is a viewing platform built out over the cliff, and I even managed to look down, and didn’t feel TOO terrified, even though it is 580m virtually straight down to the shore, where the small area between cliff and sea is cultivated in a neat pattern, looking very picturesque.
In an exhibition room is a brief history and photographs of some of the famous people who used to stay in Madeira – Churchill, George Bernard Shaw and Emperor Charles I of Austria. There is a cable car going down to the beach, but thankfully, this was not part of the day’s activities!On we went to Campanario named after the rock out in the sea which looks like a bell, then on to Ribiera Brava, where the driver’s mother was born. This, like most of the villages round the coast, is surrounded by great hills with some construction still going on, on what looks like inaccessible land. It’s a very pretty place and we had good coffee in a little café by the sea wall.
Most of the roads we drove along to reach these places are accessible only to cars and small vehicles, so we saw places that larger tour buses would have not have taken us. Some of them are very scary but our driver was so laid back and obviously so familiar with them that the fear factor was largely removed! The slopes have to be seen to be believed but the views were just stunning. Looking down from some of the slopes above Campanario, we could see the new coast road that has been built in the last 8 years. As there is so little land space, some of it has been built as viaducts out over the ocean, a very impressive sight from above.
From Ribiera Brava, we turned inland and cut up through the centre of the island on another stretch of relatively new road, through tunnels built straight through the mountains. Andre explained that the tunnel road surfaces were quite uneven, as, when the tunnels were built, they used horseshoe shaped concrete linings, and insufficient thought was given to the forces to which they would be subject. The result is that, although most of the upper parts of the tunnels are strong enough to withstand the pressures exerted by the vast weights of rock overhead, the bases are being forced up.
Our next stop was Sao Vicente, on the north coast where the residents were preparing for the Feast of Sao Vicente. The village looked very pretty with its decoration of flowers and streamers and the smell of the wood being prepared as charcoal for the barbecues was enough to make us feel hungry. Before we went off for a little explore, Andre took our orders for lunch (in Porto Moniz, top left of Madeira). The church in the centre of Sao Vicente is truly beautiful inside, quite small but intricately decorated with paintings all over the walls and ceiling.
As we returned to the bus, a small van drew up beside us – the pyrotechnic “expert” for the evening’s festivities. We were just about to get aboard once more, when this “expert” set off 5 huge rockets no more than 6ft away from us!! He simply stood the stalks on the ground, held the rocket in his hand at about head height, lit the fuse and let them go once the rocket fired – hundreds of feet into the air and the bangs were tremendous. I don’t think ‘elf ‘n’safety would have been enamoured of him! We don’t know whether it was just a signal to everyone that he’d arrived, or for our benefit as visiting tourists.
However, suitably entertained, we drove on along the north coast road towards Porto Moniz. The ocean here is so different from the south. The waves are enormous and most of the view is obscured by a fine salt mist. Spray from the breaking waves continually hit the bus, yet there are houses along the road – how they manage to keep anything dry is a puzzle. This road has also been replaced in recent years with a new one tunnelled through the rocks, and also suffering the same problems as before. In some places here, there is also cracking of the tunnel walls – NOT such a good sign – and water is leaking in. The old road here was quite spectacular – one of the other English ladies, who has been visiting Madeira for 14 years, had driven along it. It was not for the faint hearted - single lane with occasional passing places, cut out of the cliffs and only protected on the ocean side by a low wall.
Not long after Sao Vicente, Andre stopped and let us out to walk along a short stretch of the road so we could photograph 2 of the highest waterfalls on this side of the island.
We could see ahead of us the village of Seixal and the town of Porto Moniz, all shrouded by the spray, but caught in rays of sunshine. Just before Seixal, we stopped to photograph the Bride’s Veil waterfall, dropping straight into the ocean. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get near enough as the old road has been cut off by a huge landslip. There were some very good tourist stalls here and the prices were cheaper than in many of the other places we’ve been. Tom bought a lovely sweater, all greens and dark greys – too warm for here, but it’ll be lovely back home.On we went, stopping briefly in Seixal before arriving in Porto Moniz, ravenous. Our café overlooked the ocean so we were treated to wonderful breaking waves while we ate. Lunch was excellent – Madeiran cabbage soup; either tuna, scabbard fish or steak (all very good and large portions) for main course, followed by fresh fruit salad then coffee. We had red and white wine and could have had more if we wished, but we all wanted to go out and enjoy the ocean views.
Suitable refreshed, we set off once again, straight up the side of the hills – or so it seemed! If we’d thought the roads we’d travelled on this morning were winding, we had to think again! There were quite a few indrawn breaths as we negotiated some of the bends, much to Andre’s amusement. We stopped briefly for a bird’s eye view of Porto Moniz, looking just like a child’s play mat,
then we climbed further up to the road over the central plateau – and here we drove into cloud. So there were no views, which was a disappointment. We climbed to a height of 1418m to the Pico das Urzes where we were given the choice of doing a short levada walk. 6 of us decided we would, despite the cloud and cold so we all bundled up and walked for half an hour to meet up with the minibus again. The sun actually came out while we walked – but only on one side, the other was still shrouded in cloud. It WAS a bit damp and the breeze was chilly, but by the time we reached the bus, we were pleased we’d done it.Driving on over the Paul da Serra (1500m), we were again in cloud and passed the wind farms there at Bica da Cana (1620m) where Andre showed us a video he had taken on Tuesday this week of SNOW on the road! They do get it occasionally.
As we started to make our way back down the mountains, Andre pointed ahead of us to where we could see the highest peaks of Madeira – Pico das Torres (1851m) and Pico Ruivo (1862m) – only the tops could be seen above the clouds.
We won’t be going there!On the descent, he showed us the channels that collect the condensation from the clouds and feed the water down to huge pipes, the contents of which are used by the hydro-electric plant. After it has gone through the plant, the water is fed into another network of levadas to irrigate the land below. We drove on the wrong side of the road so we could experience driving through a waterfall, which was also good for cleaning the bus! The mud streaked black car following us had exactly the same idea!
This stretch of road is subject to many rock falls as we saw from the very dented barriers beside the road, but we were fortunate enough NOT to have any fall on us. Through more small tunnels, where the road surface is appalling due to the vast amounts of water that continually pour down it, we descended to Encumeada where we stopped for a glass of Poncha, a very Madeiran drink of fresh lemon juice, honey and white rum. WOW!! It certainly clears the tubes – a bit like drinking Vick vapour rub, Tom said. One small glass was quite enough! The levada here was the far end of the one we had been walking along earlier, but by now had collected several others en-route and was somewhat larger.
At this point it disappeared into a pipe, and went on its way downhill.Then it was back in the bus
for the last, fast ride back to our hotels – joining the rush hour traffic. It was a fantastic day out. Tom didn’t feel car sick at any point, even with the winding roads, I think because we stopped so often and he had plenty of fresh air, but also because the ride was bumpy rather than floaty. Our driver was very knowledgeable both about Madeira, its history and stories, and about the vegetation, plants and the land formations. We found out from him that the trees outside our room are kapok trees. The pods we likened to avocados, burst in February releasing the kapok into the air. The angel statue we saw earlier in the holiday (when we did our first levada walk) is a memorial to all the men who died during the building of the original island infrastructure.
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