Blogs from Madeira, Portugal, Europe - page 20

It's 11.30 am and we're still under arrest. We have a non-update update saying that the captain has advised that we won't be sailing before 1.00 pm and we are allowed ashore. We still have no further information but understand the story is now in the public domain (see headlines from both Portuguese and English newspapers). Why a ship with a cargo of mainly British passengers should be arrested the stop before we come home has to remain a mystery; there's no sense to it. But, we understand the issue is a dispute between the Administrators of Travelscope, the company that folded in December and Club Cruise, the owners of the ship. Who knows when it will be sorted.... read more

So this is it, my final entry of the cruise and what a time we have had. Our last port of call.Madeira, was reached on Thursday around 0800hrs. The weather overnight had been somewhat rough and many of us were kept awake with the banging throughout the ship by the waves hitting the bough, not to mention the heavy swell. Thought after that we might be in for a rough day but in fact turned out fine. The Maderian archepelago lies in the Atlantic Ocean, west of Mexico and north of the Canary Islands. The largest of these Portuguese islands, some 600 miles southwest of Lisbon, is the Ilha da Madeira, Island of Timber, and the only other inhabited island is the tiny Porto Santo. Also in the archipelago are the Ilhas Desertas, desert isles, and ... read more

The second thing on our "must see" list is a sailing trip the the Desertas. These are the three uninhabited islands you can see from Funchal. They´ve been declared nature preserves and you have to have permission to go out there. A charter company here sails out three or four times a week with paying customers for a couple of hours. However, last Saturday the wind shifted and has been coming in from the east. Apparently this happens a couple of times a year and lasts for several days. During this time the seas are quite rough and the sailing ship doesn´t go out. So, no trip to the Desertas for us this year. We´ve slowed down in our wanderings and are spending more time in the apartment to catch up on little "living" details, like ... read more

The first week of being on our own in an apartment has flown by. We've achieved a routine of sorts. We rarely get out of the apartment before 11 a.m. as we eat breakfast, sit in the morning sun drinking our coffee, etc. Don has been watching the Australian Open and I've been re-tooling my yoga routine. Anyway, we generally get out the door just as the cleaning crew shows up to clean the apartment. Once we're out on the street, we usually choose a different direction and just wander; checking out anything in our path that is mentioned in the "Insight Guide", window shopping and stopping for coffee and/or snacks when the spirit moves us. Street wandering is a joy around this town. You can turn down any small lane twisting through a block and ... read more

The final "tour" we purchased for the first week of our stay in Madeira was a "Typical Dinner". A minivan picked us up the hotel at 7:30 p.m. There were two passengers already in the van, a mother and daughter from Surrey, England. They immediately commented upon my American accent. Given that I've neither met nor heard any other Americans so far in Portugal, I guess my accent is noticeable. I wonder what an American accent sounds like to a Brit. Anyway, we were driven to a large restaurant that probably holds up to 500 people, with a stage across one end of the room. We thought, oh dear, this is going to be a mass production. But, only about forty people came to the dinner that night, so it had an intimate feel about it. ... read more