Thursday, April 21, 2016

8:00 AM and we were docked at Funchal, Madeira, Portugal and island 880 km from Africa and 1,100 km from Lisbon.  Discovered in 1419 by Portuguese explorer Joao Gonclaves Zarco and the settlers came shortly thereafter.  In 1560 the Spanish occupied the island but Portugal regained control in 1640.  The Madeira wine is created when the wine is place in US oak barrels and shipped across the equator, when returned the wine is matured and only gets better with age.  Newlyweds buy a bottle on their wedding day then have a taste on each anniversary for 25 years and the wine gets better each year.  Our tour today was “Panoramas of West Madeira” lasting 7 and 1/2 hours beginning at 8:30 AM.  Our drives took us to Camara de Lobos where we stopped for tastes of wine and honey cakes (and rest rooms).  This is where Winston Churchill painted many of his oil paintings.  The drives were pretty exciting when we were on the side next to the cliffs.  The altitudes go from sea level to 1,400 meters and at one place the sheer cliffs plunge 500+ meters into the sea.  We walked out at the top of the cliffs onto a glass floor where your view is straight down to the sea.  Exciting, No?  A stop for coffee and sweet roll at Ribeiro Brava and a view of their black sand beach was pleasant.  Our lunch stop was at Porto Moniz where we had salads and fish soup with a glass of wine.  The whole day was rain and wind but we still made it until we got back to Funchal where the rain was a torrent and even with our rain ponchos our pants legs and shoes were soaked just getting from the bus back to the ship.  Got dried off and made our way to the Martini Bar for drinks before our dinner.  Great day in spite of the weather.  Dinner in the Terrace Cafe and after reading a while, putting our clocks ahead another hour we went to sleep.