FUNCHAL, MADEIRA – NEW YEARS DAY

Today, we were still in Funchal, Madeira. The difference was that we’d moved to a berth in the port. Not just any berth, mark you, but the one nearest to the town – a much coveted berth indeed. This definitely felt like something of a luxury, and very welcome indeed, not least because I wasn’t feeling too good at all; the dreaded cold that had been sweeping through the ship had finally caught up with me.
In light of all this, the plan was to keep our day as simple as possible, and not over-exert ourselves. Yeah, right…
Once ashore we walked through the town, which felt very different to how it did yesterday – more ‘post-celebration’ than ‘celebration’, if you know what I mean. Most of the cabins along the main street were now shut, and there were far fewer people milling around.
We made our way towards the cable car, which was, it seemed, an idea shared by most of the folks who had come ashore from the ships. The queue for tickets was long and winding, but at least it was moving. After the queue for the tickets came the queue for the cable car itself. All we had to do was to be patient.

The good news was that the queue moved reasonably quickly, with a new car arriving every couple of minutes or so, and soon we were on our way to Monte, sharing a small space with two other couples, enjoying the extensive views across the city and the port.


There isn’t a great deal to see or do at Monte other than to visit the church – which is free – or pay to visit the Tropical Gardens (€15 each). Another option lies in an additional cable car ride to the main Botanical Gardens over on the other side of the valley. We headed for the church.
Toboggan rides back down the hill are another favourite visitor attraction, but they were not operating today. We’ve done that once before and will probably not do it again… but it is something that every visitor to Funchal should experience at least once.
After looking around the church, I insisted that we explore one of the footpaths behind the church, that I could see on the map, more as a fact-finding mission for when we return here again in February. Note that I say ‘I insisted’, Tracey wasn’t so keen on the idea, knowing that it might be a little too much for me, feeling poorly as I was. I promised that we wouldn’t go far, as I wasn’t feeling up to anything more energetic, but you know how it is with these things; once you’ve started…

Eventually our footpath came to a dead end (or, at least a point where a sign warned us that beyond it lay private land, and to beware of dog), but not before we’d enjoyed some great views from a slightly higher point. It was time to go back, though, as I was starting to flag.

From our higher viewpoint, we noticed that there were some people on the roof of the church, so we returned to the church to see how that might be possible (since we’d failed to see any such access earlier). It turns out that there is a rather strange arangement whereby, to go up to church roof one first has to agree to a small photo session. This produced the usual ‘green screen’-type stuff, when they superimposed us onto various shots of the roof. In one, we were simply posing. In another, Tracey was pushing me off the roof and I was reacting suitably dramatically. There was another where we were pointing at something, but I can’t remember what the outcome was. To purchase prints of the moments was going to cost something like €15, a deal we passed on… it did enable access to the roof, though, from where we were able to take a handful of photographs ourselves, at no cost. It’s all clearly a way to, hopefully, generate a little bit of income, but it still felt a rather odd way to go about it.
Truth be told, I had pushed myself a little too far and by the time we arrived back down in the town I was really not feeling well at all. All I wanted to do was get back to the ship and curl up in bed. We have three more sea days to go and I need to be operational tomorrow morning.

Leaving port was actually very entertaining. We’d been parked opposite a large German ship (‘Mein Shiffe’) all day. In fact, once we had got back to the cabin, I’d had a bit of a nap and Tracey had been to lunch (bringing me back some Mr Whippy Ice Cream from the Lido… because she loves me…), we sat on the balcony looking across to the other ship with our binoculars, in particular, checking out the expensive-looking suites situated on the highest level. When it came time to leave, our Captain (who I’m sure knew the captain of the German vessel very well), instructed us to wave our towels from the balconies in farewell, as he played ‘Rule Britannia’ over the PA system at full volume. Both ships sounded their horns in unison and folks waved and cheered good-naturedly – from both ships, I should add.
And so, as Funchal – our final port-of-call – receded away from us, and the sun set, we faced our last leg… three days at sea, as we head North, through the Bay of Biscay, towards Portsmouth, and home.
