Saturday 19th December, 2015. Madeira, Portugal

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Saturday 19th December, 2015. Madeira, Portugal

Funchal is the capital of the Madeira Islands of Portugal and the largest city on the islands. With its neighbouring boroughts it has a population of over 150,000 inhabitants. It was founded by Joao Concalves Zarco in 1421. The city is locatedin a unique area; the natural geological geatures form an "amphitheature" surrounding the city, which begins at te harbour and rises almost 1200 metres high on gentle slopes. Funchal is so named because of the abundance of fennel found in the area.

After a posh breakfast we walked into the city to a car hire place. We only wanted the car for half a day but they weren't going to strike us a reduced rate so we knocked it on the head and went to the tourist office to suss out the local buses. After some deliberation we decided to take the 113 to Machico which is on the east of the island out past the airport. This was approximately a 45 minute trip It was a miserable day with intermittent showers. Machico is a typical Madeiran town with buildings of white and grey volcanic stones. We wandered around the town through the Christmas market (which was shut and on a much smaller scale than the one in Funchal) and took a picture of the church before heading to the beach. The beach here is naturally black and volcanic but the authorities had made a "beach" of bright yellow sand complete with coconut palm topped parasols. They weren't needed today but there were two hardened souls taking in the non-existent rays and going for a dip. We found a bar close to the paragem (bus stop) where a lovely lady who spoke excellent English happily told us all about the different liqours and sweet drinks that you could find on the island. We caught the bus back and M took a few shots of the airport runway which is a real feat of engineering. There was nowhere flat enough to build an airport in Madeira so they have built the runway on huge concrete and steel pylons jutting into the sea. They have even got a little fishing port and marina under the pylons.

We alighted the bus a stop earlier than the one where we had boarded because we had time to go through central Funchal and the Christmas Market one last time. We listened to some local music and watched some traditional dancing before finding a part of the market, just off to one side, which we had missed yesterday. Here there were stalls making traditional artisan crafts and a lady baking traditional Madeiran Bread. There was also a model "Ethnographic Village". There were girls in traditional Madeiran dress and a guy with milk churns on a pole. We took some snaps and then walked up to the Ritz which is decorated with traditional blue and white Portuguese tiles. Opposite the Ritz there is a pleasant little park where the Xmas theme continued. M had her photo take with the "I love Madeira" heart and sat on one of the large plastic reindeer that were pulling a large sleigh with a Santa.

We made our way back to the ship and went for afternoon tea (we had missed lunch). Dinner was followed by the comedianLee Carroll who wasn't as funny as his first show. Given the rubbish weather we had a nice day.

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