October 18 2014 - Mad About Madeira

Funchal, Madeira

Giddy on sangria and reeking of garlic, we stumbled back to the ship after a memorable lunch at Casal da Penha in Funchal. But first, our morning adventures . . .

When we awoke we were docked in Funchal, after 3 full days without seeing land. It was a lovely, sunny day as we looked out across the harbor towards the mountains. Houses were flowing down the sides of the mountains like lava. Almost all the houses here are white with red tile roofs. Most of the rest are pale yellow with red tile roofs.

Madeira was discovered by Joao Goncalves Zarco in 1419, though the Romans most likely knew about it. The Madeira archipelago is an autonomous region of Portugal and is part of the EU.

There were four ships here today - the P&O Oceana, Fred Olsen's Balmoral, and MSC's Sinfonia. The  Emerald Princess was the largest. This island of 280,000 surely felt the impact.

It was a longish walk from the dock to the HopOn HopOff bus stop (about 30 minutes). Is it just my imagination, or does Princess always have the berth that is farthest away from the action?

We boarded the red HOHO double-decker and found seats on top. Our 90 minute route took us through Funchal first. There were many little alleys containing restaurants and shops. We also saw several churches, municipal buildings, and parks. 

Typical Portuguese architectural style seen in Madeira

Columbus Park

Don't forget to look up

No, this picture is not sideways

We passed two soccer stadiums and a residential area as the bus headed away from downtown. Eventually the bus climbed up a steep, narrow, winding road to an overlook located at 355m above sea level (over 1000 feet). I found myself wondering, "Where is the center of gravity on this bus?" and "Do these double-deckers ever tip over?"

Cemetery on the hillside

Because it is a HopOn HopOff bus rather than a tour bus, we had to choose between 1) continuing on, or 2) getting off at the overlook, walking up a little way to actually see the view,  and then waiting 30 minutes for the next bus and perhaps losing our seats on the top level. So we stayed on the bus.

The bus then left Funchal and took us to Câmara de Lobos, a picturesque fishing village. It was named for the "lobos" that used to live in the waters there. We call them sea lions, but the Portuguese translates to "sea wolves." I always thought the UAA Seawolves were named for a mythical sea creature, but maybe not. They also said the sea wolves were monk seals, so maybe they weren't sea lions. They are no longer there - they are almost extinct - so we didn't see any.

Câmara de Lobos

In Câmara de Lobos we also saw the second tallest cliff in the world (2,000 feet), the tallest being in Thailand. It was quite impressive.

On the return to Funchal we passed the hotel and "beach" area. The beaches are very rocky here and I don't think they get much use.

After completing the HOHO circuit, we got off the bus and walked around Funchal for a while. We peeked down some of the alleys and looked in shop windows. Madeira is known for its lace and embroidery, and even boasts an embroidery museum, but what we saw was unbelievably expensive. In one shop window we could see the price tags. We saw a beautiful table runner, no larger than 24" by 60", for which they wanted €455!

We saw a fort, some churches, some statues, a small park with a truly underwhelming craft market, a modern shopping mall, and a "wine lodge" which included a tour, a tasting room, and a shop. We bought some small bottles of Madeira, and I'll let you know what I think, wine connoisseur that I am not. There are four main types of Madeira wine, a fortified wine: Malmsey (sweetest), Boal, Verdelho, and Sercial (driest).

Our penultimate stop was a very nice large park dedicated to Christopher Columbus. Columbus was here in 1479, he decided to stay, and he ended up marrying the daughter of the governor of Porto Santo, a smaller island in the Madeiran archipelago. While on Madeira, Columbus clarified many of his ideas about using the trade winds to sail westward.

Our destination for lunch, Casal da Penha, was a little bit hard to find, since it was in one of those alleys that is not identified on tourist maps. I think lunch is not a big thing in Madeira. The restaurant was empty except for one couple smoking on the terrace. The menu consisted of mostly heavy main courses such as meat and seafood and paella. We decided to stay because it had great reviews on TripAdvisor and it was clean and attractive. We both ordered the local fish. It is known as black scabbard in English (not the most appealing name) and in Portuguese it is espada. We ordered a pitcher of white sangria and some bread, which turned out to be a delicious type of garlic bread. I ordered my fish in the local style, which was fried, with a banana. (Bananas are Madeira's biggest export.) Ken ordered his "Spanish Style." It took a while for the fish to appear, but we were enjoying the sangria and garlic bread, and it was definitely worth the wait. The fish was sweet and light and expertly prepared. A large quantity of local (I assume) vegetables came with the fish - potatoes, sweet potatoes, a tomato slice, carrots, green beans and something like fried polenta, which the server called "maize." Everything was wonderful!! We couldn't eat it all, but we did a respectable job.

Tip #2: If you want to go to a specific restaurant (or any other place) find it on GoogleMaps or MapQuest before you go and print out the map.

After our fabulous lunch it was a fairly short walk back to the ship. I was ready for a nap.

After the ship sailed away from beautiful Madeira, we settled back into shipboard life. The show tonight was I Got the Music. It was good, with songs by Barbara Streisand, Neil Diamond, Cher, and others from the 60's and 70's.