I worked up this morning dreaming that my teeth had fallen out, perhaps I shouldn’t have eaten the dessert last night at dinner. We found a local cafe up the hill for a ham roll and coffee for breakfast, and then walked down some steep roads into the city centre. Most of the roads are Hills, and often steep. The drivers are very adept at tearing around at steeep angles. Funchal is a very neat, clean city with whitewashed houses and red Roman-tiled roofs. The old centre by the harbour is quite small, and the twentyth century part of the city spreads for miles up the surrounding hills. Everyone gets a great view of the sea, and probably have strong hearts, if they haven’t expired hiking up a hill.
The cable car station is near the big indoor market on the front by the sea. Since we are here out of season, the queue for the cars was short and mostly retired people from Northern Europe. The trip is delightful, travelling a hundred feet over the rooftops up hill to Monte. The ticketing system is a bit confusing, since there are multiple gardens at the top, and various combination tickets that you can buy.
Below us we coiled hear the chickens and dogs, and saw plantations of the local bananas, which are only about 5 inches long (the bananas, not the trees). Monte is where the famous sledge rides start, wood and wicker sliding sofas that are guided by two men with ropes. It’s fun to watch but as a means of public transport it has severe limitations.
Monte has some lovely views over the city, and I had a swift half of Coral, the local lager. I reckon that all continental lager is made in one giant brewery in Düsseldorf and is then shipped to all the EU and stuck in bottles with a local label, it all tastes the same to me.
There was a choice between th sun tropical gardens or the Botanical Gardens, so I decided on the Botanical Gardens, since I love reading small signs in Latin. Getting there required another cable car across a massive ravine and entry charge to the gardens, €13.50 combined.
Kew Gardens, it ain’t. It’s a nice place to spend a couple of hours, but there are no greenhouses and very few little Latin signs. The cactus and succulent garden is impressive, with lots of big mean looking spiny plants. The museum takes the award for The Crappest Natural History Museum I Have Ever Seen. The tatty stuffed fish and birds are even crapper than those in the museum in Prague, my previous award winner. But I do have to bear in mind that Madeira has the same population as Plymouth, which doesn’t have a Botanic Garden at all!
I needed another small beer and a bit of cake, all that vegetation exhausted me. Being mad and English we decided to walk back to the flat, it didn’t look far on Google maps. In actuality the road was steep, twisty and without a footpath all the way down to the city centre. Once we got to the bottom, we then had to walk up a hill to get back to the flat. Man we wuz knackered when we got back.
After a rest we examined a heap of leaflets to decide what we are doing on Sunday. It’s going to be a journey into the mysterious Nuns Valley, I’ll bet you’ve never seen one!
Dinner was enjoyed at a restaurant called Trigal. I had Espada, a delicious fish with a banana on top. Wierd I know, but that’s the way they eat them here.
timharnesstravels 