2004 Europe

Funchal, Madeira

April 26 – Today we are in Funchal, Madeira, Portugal. It’s a bigger city than either Horta or Porta Delgada. In fact, we have visited these three cities in order of increasing size. Madeira is noted for its wines. They say they have four styles made from four different grapes, sercial (dry taste, light color), verdelho (medium dry, golden color), bual (medium sweet, dark gold color, sometimes spelled boal) and malmsey (the very first grape brought to the islands, sweet, chestnut brown). I am here to tell you that all the wines, regardless of their description, are sweet by our standards. It was very popular in colonial America.

We didn’t have a ship’s tour until the afternoon so we got off the ship early and walked downtown. It’s a much busier place that either of the other Azorean islands we’ve visited. People bustling everywhere. We went to the Cathedral of Funchal, built in the 1500s. Just down from the Cathedral we found the Mercado dos Lavradores. It was full of flower, fruit, leather and lace stands. At the far end was the fisherman’s cooperative. We got there about 9AM and it was very busy. They had lots of Tuna, Barracuda (or a fish that looks just like one), eels, rock fish (looked like red snapper), and several species of fish I couldn’t identify. And here's the best part, the really good tuna in the picture below was 3 euros a kilo. That's $1.75 a POUND! and it was caught overnight so it's totally fresh. That entire fish market did not produce a noticeable fish smell, it was amazing. We walked by the Parliament, the Presidents palace and the headquarters of the military. All the buildings appear to be from the 1700s or earlier. None were open for visitors. The guards at the military headquarters carried 4-foot swords over their shoulders like rifles. The sidewalks in all these cities have all been made mosaic style with dark basalt and white stones. They have an amazing array of patterns and designs in them. After Diana bought some postcards we headed back to the ship.

Author's Note: The fish I described as a barracuda above is actually an Espada Preta or Black Scabbard Fish. It's related to the Perch family. It is a predator fish and has rows of very sharp teeth. The shape is long and streamlined, just like a barracuda.

In the afternoon we rode the cable car to Monte, a parish of Funchal about 1,500 feet above the harbor. The views from up there were very nice. The cable cars were small, enclosed gondolas that hold 6 people. We rode up with two ladies from Holland and a young couple from Portugal. Everyone spoke English so it was a very friendly ride. I greeted the couple in Portuguese and they answered in Portuguese first then English to let me know we could keep talking. I’m sure my accent gave away the fact that I didn’t know much of their language. After arriving in Monte we walked about 200 yards to a hilly street where they have wicker sleds with wooden runners. A rope is attached to the front of each runner and two men use these ropes to pull the sled to get it started and then whip it past them and jump on the back of each runner much like a dog-sled musher. They turn the sled sideways to slow it down and alternately drag their feet to steer. It doesn’t go that fast, but I’m sure it reached 30 mph at some spots. You could smell the wooden runners heating up. I half expected them to start burning. The men wear white shirts and pants and a skimmer-like, brimmed straw hat. The ride to the bottom was a lot of fun.

After that we boarded a bus for a trip to a point over the city for some pics and a coffee. The coffee was great but, even though I drink coffee black in the States, I had to add a little sugar to tone it down. They give you two 9-gram (that’s a little over a quarter ounce) packs of sugar with each small coffee so I think the custom is to drink it fairly sweet. Then it was back on the bus for a stop at the “Wine Lodge”. Set parallel to the oldest street in Funchal across a cobbled courtyard, is the Old Blandy Wine Lodge. Sampling rooms go back to the 17th century. Once the annex to a Franciscan monastery it now houses some 800,000 liters of Madeira wine. The main tasting bar has historic murals painted by the German artist Max Romer. Here we had a tasting session with the Madeira wines. As I said before they’re all sweet, some are just sweeter. The least sweet is somewhat like a sweet white Zinfandel. The sweetest is like a very sweet Port wine. All are fortified so there is very little chance that they will go bad if you have a bottle open for a long period of time. After the wine tasting we went back to the ship just in time to sail away to the sounds of Guy Lombardo’s Royal Canadians by Al Pierson. Gives you a very nostalgic feeling, even though you never actually experienced the real thing. Weird!

They were having a BBQ on the Lido deck this evening so we decided to skip dinner in the dining room and eat al fresco on the lido. They had steak, chicken, sausage, ribs and salmon from the BBQ as well as salad makings, bean salad, fresh fruit salad and a shrimp, calamari, slaw sort of salad. It was very good.

The cast for evening entertainment was made up of the cruise staff and passengers. Both Diana and I had parts. It was a lip sync 50s-60s rock and roll review. Diana was Leslie Gore and I was Tiny Tim. Diana got to do ‘It’s my party” with a back up group of similarly dressed party girls but I had to do ‘Tiptoe through the Tulips” solo. It was a hoot. They had costumes for us, Diana got a poodle skirt and I will not describe how I was dressed except to say that there was a wig and ukulele involved. Sorry that there’s no pictorial record of this event, NOT!!

April 27 – Our last day at sea on this leg of the cruise. Tomorrow we will be in Cadiz, Spain, the fourth largest city and the day after Lisbon on Diana’s birthday. All our dinner mates will be leaving in Lisbon and I hope their replacements are as nice as they are. I’m just relaxing today and catching up on some pic processing and writing. The Noordam cast presented this evenings entertainment. It was called ‘All That Jazz’ and had blues and jazz tunes. They were very good once again. This type of music seems to suit Casey’s voice.
(c) 2004 Rod Longenberger