Madeira

Our days cruising along on Wednesday and Thursday were comfortable and relaxing. The temperature outside is getting noticeably cooler as we move north - usually in the high 60's F (or about 20C). The evening theatre events have been excellent. There is a trio of classical musicians (piano, violin, cello) who play occasionally in the central atrium of the ship as well as accompanying 4 opera singers that boarded the ship in St. Lucia. These singers - 2 men and 2 women - have put on excellent performances, accompanied by the trio. The singers are all Italian, we think, and we guess that the musicians are possibly Hungarian. Since leaving St. Lucia a week ago, the evening theatre performances have alternated between classical music presentations, and modern singers/dancers as well as amazing gymnasts. There are 2 men (possibly Russian) who are incredibly strong and perform feats of balance and strength together. Two women gymnasts perform on 2 hanging fabric sheets: they climb up and twist the sheets around their bodies or legs, and do all sorts of impressive gymnastic moves without a safety net. There is also a group of dancers - mostly Russian again - we are classically trained but do all sorts of modern dances while wearing intricate costumes.

As I expected, the ship arrived in port on the island of Madeira 12 hours early - on Thursday evening about 6:30pm. We had an early dinner then got off the ship as soon as we could, and walked about 2 km along the long, curving quay from the ship to the road along the ocean, thence into the centre of the town of Fuchal. Madeira was the first island "discovered" by the Portuguese in 1413 and settlement began shortly afterwards. It is the top of a massive underwater mountain that rises from 10,000 feet deep, and then rises to over 3,000 feet above sea level. The island is rugged without any flat areas, so the inhabitants live in houses clinging to steep hillsides. Funchal is located in a small bay: the downtown is on a hill, then the hill rises even more steeply behind the city. It rains often on the mountain tops, and there are at least 3 small rivers that are routed through the city. (We recall seeing news video last year of a huge rainstorm in Madeira, flooding the streets and washing away cars and houses. We heard that at least 1,000 people were killed). On Thursday evening I brought my computer with us into town and found a WiFi "hotspot" in a small shopping centre, where we bought some coffee and a pastry. (As Ann says, the Portuguese pastries are fantastic, and this was no exception). I was able to connect to the internet and call my father in Ottawa over Skype and was lucky to find Ken (our son) visiting my father for a few minutes. I also updated over 20 podcasts so I would have more current programs to listen to on my iPod. We got back to the ship after 10pm expecting to have a quiet, restful sleep in port. As it turned out, for some reason we don't know, we didn't sleep well at all. I felt like I had drunk caffeine, which I can't tolerate. Maybe some of the decaf coffee I had consumed during the day hadn't been decaf. Also, deck crew decided to hose down and scrub the deck and stairs of the ship in the middle of the night. Our cabin is on the rear corner, so we could easily hear the noise.

On Friday, we left the ship for our excursion at 9:15am, heading in a bus up the steep roads to a church overlooking Funchal. We then walked to a gondola lift, that took us down the hill to the edge of town where we walked through beautiful botanical gardens. Madeira is well known as a flower and fruit growning island (as well as for its fortified Madeira wine). The bus then took us into the centre of town where we got off in front of the main market. Ann and I looked around the shops and the market for a couple hours, then found a very good restaurant to have a typical Portugues lunch of fish, veggies & potatoes, and pastry, all washed down with excellent Vinho Verde from Portugal. We had decided not to the take the bus back to the ship and, after lunch, slowly made our way along the waterfront to the ship by 4:30pm. The ship pulled away at 6pm while we were eating dinner.

Today (Saturday) was our last full day at sea. It is about 1,000km to Malaga, Spain where we are scheduled to dock at 8am on Sunday. We will be passing through the southern Strait of Gibraltor between midnight and 2am, with the coast of Morocco on our right side as we go. We don't intend to wake up and take a look. We will take our longest excursion tomorrow to Granada where we will see the Alhambra, a part of Granada built by the Moors. The bus trip will take 1:45 hours each way, with about 2.5 hours in Granada, so it will be a full day. We are really looking forward to it because the architecture is very beautiful.