Friday 16 January

Well, it was a dull start to the day with clouds covering the hills although no rain. We were both still feeling slightly under the weather, and with Tom’s snoring, I hadn’t slept very well either so a lazy morning was on the cards!

When we eventually got ourselves together, the weather was a bit brighter, so we caught the bus into town. One of the guide books said that the Palacio de Sao Lourenco, which is an old fortress dating from 1513 right in the centre of Funchal on Avenida do Mar, is open for visits at certain times and Fridays at 3pm is one of them. The Palace is divided into 2 wings, military and civil. The east wing is the Command HQ of the Military Zone of Madeira and houses a history of the construction of the building and subsequent alterations, but we weren’t allowed in there. The west wing is used by the Minister of the Autonomous region of Madeira as his official residence and has a rich collection of furniture and art from the 17th – 19th centuries, which we were allowed to view. It wasn’t so much a guided tour as a do-it-yourself tour. We were all handed a leaflet giving the facts of the rooms we were about to see and then we were led around and just had to read the relevant information as we moved from room to room. It’s the strangest “guided tour” I’ve ever known! But there were some fabulous bits that the Antiques Roadshow experts would wax lyrical about, it was interesting and it was free – we like free! There was another large tapestry hanging in the entrance hall – we keep finding these wonderful tapestries all over the place, all made by the Madeira Embroiderers. Our hotel has several, all large pieces and all done obviously in the not too distant past.

As this visit only took about 45 minutes, we decided to go on to the “Story of Madeira” exhibition. We had a drink, and the first of our “stickies”, in the attached café then bought our tickets (no freebies here) for what was touted as “bringing the sights and sounds of Madeira to life”. It’s well laid out and certainly takes you on a journey from the first discovery of the islands up to the present day, but is much smaller than we had envisaged and didn’t take us long to get round. All the information is set out in 4 languages – Portuguese, English, French and German – and the translations into English are excellent so it was easy to follow. There are lots of interactive bits so certainly designed to interest children. Tom had to try all the challenges……
of course!
Having exhausted ourselves, we caught the last free coach back, had a rest, then went out to eat at the White House again, before tackling the 150 steps for the last time today. And so to bed.