Port 43 Funchal, Madeira

by Ed · April 5, 2022

Ola! We arrived at Madeira and pulled in to Funchal’s harbor late in the morning on April Fool’s Day! This is the end of a seven-day Atlantic crossing! I apologize up front that it took so long to post this. I had a lot of technical problems getting Joy’s pictures to upload. I figured it out yesterday (the 4th). Enjoy!

This is our third visit to this lovely island! The P&O Arcadia and Viking Jupiter are in port ahead of us.

While mooring lines are set we have a chance to see a few of these cute fisihing boats go by!

From our veranda I snapped a few shots of sites on shore. A beautiful church: (spoiler alert – Joy finds this church!)

And a castle or fort:

While we’re having breakfast we are informed that our next two stops, Gibraltar, UK, and Melilla, Spain, are cancelled due to expected inclement weather. Whirled! The port of Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy, is being added in front of our next planned port of call at Trapani, Sicily, Italy. We don’t care about Gibraltar, but Melilla was our last opportunity on this cruise to say we landed on the continent of Africa. Grrrr… Funny, the map at the top of the itinerary is still the original plan – it still has Hamilton, Bermuda, Ponte Delgada, Azores, Tangiers, Morocco, and Gozo, Malta. All of those are gone!

I have a tour today to hit a few photo stops and do some wine tasting. Joy has identified some sites in Funchal she wants to visit. I’m going to mix up our photos a little bit.

I was tickled to see this Hotel and Casino in town. This is a shout out to our buddy, Mark Pestana! Are you a hotel tycoon and didn’t know it?

Right next door is this lovely and intersting hotel. I found out it is the Savoy!

And then on the other side of the Savoy – Ta da! Another Pestana! Go, Mark, Go!

OK, enough foolery. Let’s get down to some great photos from Joy!

Joy was on her own, walking in to town. She wanted to go to Old Town and find a district that started painting artwork. If you recall my Tahiti blogs with the street art on the walls, well this is neither street art nor on walls, but personal art on doors! A movement started in 2011 to decorate doors with artwork. Joy went to find it. Over 200 doors are reported to have been painted.

On her way in to town she passed this beautiful lookout point at the end of the dock. The mix of natural rock and various stones is intriguing! But not as much as that tall door in the middle. Where do dat go?

On Joy’s walk she captured some gorgeous streets with fabulous tilework! Here are several photos:

This is a fun street view with the ascending taxis, but look closely and you’ll see the tilework continues here!

This street didn’t use the white and black tile, the the black cobblestones are still nice, and the street is worth exploring!

There were statues and fountains to admire…

There were churches and buildings to behold! OMG, the second church below had a stunning interior belying its relatively conservative exterior!

This is the church I saw from the ship. Check out the interior!

There were other interesting buildings to admire!

This building incorporates a lot of Deflt tile artwork! A few samples are included!

And the doors! Hundreds of beautifully painted doors! Here is a large sampling! We start with the relatively fine art:

This one is from a Rubber Duck store! Did you know a store that would only sell rubber ducks could survive?

I love this one most!

Then there was the somewhat whimsical art:

Then there is the pseudo cubist art:

And finally, the surreal art:

Finally, the flowers! Joy bought a bouquet from this charming lady. We have color in our cabin!

Joy also found one of the whicker toboggan sleds that are used to give people rides down the mountain! Two people sit in it, and two Madeira runners wearing special rubber shoes push you down the hill on a special plasticized trail. They ride on the runners and steer the toboggan! Sound like fun? The people show did it said it was great! So check it out the next time you’re in Funchal!

Finally, Joy found this lovely home. In case you didn’t figure it out, it is a kitty condo! Cute, huh?

Now, back to my tour – boring after Joy’s adventure! It begins with a drive to Pico dos Barcelos for an overlook of the city. Walking up the plaza to the overlook is like walking off the end of the earth. There appears to be nothing beyond the trees at the top!

But not so. It is a pleasant plaza with addition ramps for handicap access. Cute mushroom lamps are in several locations for night light.

A cross recognizing Jesus Christ dominates the plaza.

The view is stunning! From here, to the south/southeast we see the bay with our ship, as well as the three deserted islands that are part of Madeira (you can barely see the end of the third island on the left).

Here’s my gratuitous photo of Insignia!

Looking a little more easterly, we see the homes crawling up the mountainside and into the clouds! I’m amazed at the highway tunnel. Let’s look closer!

Zooming in on the tunnel, the road to the left goes straight up hill! I can’t imagine living here with the hilly conditions!

Looking a little more northeast we look a little more inland, and see the beautiful church below!

Zoomingin on the church is a worthwhile thing to do! Beautiful spires!

Looking down to this beautiful black sand beach area, what catches my eye is the complex on the point and the long path to the boat pier below. Whew! Makes me tired just looking at it! I won’t zoom in on it.

We next head to a Madeira wine tasting! Yum! We stop at a local bar, Bar Mario. We get to taste the medium sweet madeira and have a nibble on Madeira wedding cake! It is like a fruit cake, but with far less candied fruit. Very nice! And it goes well with the wine. Then they gave us a taste of the medium dry wine. I actually preferred that and bought a bottle to enjoy on the ship. Henriques & Henriques is the maker. We drove past their brewery on our way to the next stop!

They have just a few barrels aging!

We head toward the west to the Cabo Girao Skywalk for a look. Enroute we see some pretty amazing countryside and construction to manage the hillsides! Here’s my favorite – the walled road at the bottom right.

We arrive at Cabo Girao. First you walk on a grated floor, then step onto the glass floor! It is high, built at the highest sea cliff in all of Europe! 589 meters, 1,932 ft!

I watched with great mirth as people gingerly stepped out onto the walk and ran to grab the rail just in case the grate fell! But then I had to chastise myself because a fear of heights is a real problem for some folks and is not a laughing matter. It was OK for their friends to laugh, but not me, a total stranger.

I leaned over to look straight down. This is the view!

But even more beautiful is the view to the side! Photos don’t do the real scene justice!

Our last stop is the quaint seaside village of Camara de Lobos – City of the Sea Wolves. Winston Churchill stopped here and did a painting of the harbor from one of the restaurant patios near where I’m standing for this photo. The restaurant was renamed “Churchill’s”!

The fishing boats here are incredibly cute! This one has a spider of bamboo poles that only seem useful for riggin a tarp for shade.

A walk way begins here that we were told will take us all of the way back to Funchal, if we want to try it sometime, but not today. It is a 12 kilometer walk, and we have only an hour before the ship leaves! Another day! We decided we want to come back here for a week!

From the harbor looking up at that walkway, and Churchills is the all-white building on the left, just above the yellow and pale green houses.

The monk seals are an endangered species, having been excessivley hunted for their fur and oil. But in the earl 16th century they frequented this harbor. The seals howled like wolves, giving this harbor its name, Camara de Lobos. A monk seal is depicted on the harbor wall. Its construction is fascinating, appear to be made of odd metal parts and rope, as well as paint! Good news – the monk seals have been thriving on the Desertas Islands – the deserted islands we saw to the southeast of Madeira. They are still endangered, but they are safe in these waters!

Looking back from the harbor we see rows and rows beached fishing boats! They are very colorful and have an interesting construction with large multiple keels on the boats so they kinda stay upright when pulled up on shore!

There are also rows and rows of banana trees on the hillside! These are dwarf cavendish banana trees – one of Madeira’s major exports!

As I mentioned, we needed to get back to the ship. We had a short day here in Madeira. As we pull out we discover the Viking Jupiter had already left ahead of us! (We later learned on cruisemapper.com that she was two hours ahead of us, on the same track to the Strait of Gibraltar.)