After seven full days at sea, it was an event to see anything other than open ocean. On day five we passed a cargo ship off our port side headed in the opposite direction; if our cabin hadn’t been port-side we never would have seen it. Indeed, nobody we mentioned it to seemed to have noticed it. The next day we spotted a bird, and the day after that we were treated to the sighting of a flying fish. Unfortunately for us, that same day we missed seeing a pod of whales that some of our new cruise friends spotted; we would gladly have exchanged the sighting of a cargo ship for seeing those whales.
C’est la vie, some see cargo vessels, some see whales. Either way, it’s hard to imagine what it was like a century ago or earlier, when crossings took weeks or more. It’s not surprising that sailors confused manatees for mermaids, not for any salacious reason but for the simple reason that it was a welcome sight to see something–anything, really–different than ocean and your ship after just a week or so.
So it was wonderful to wake up the morning of day 8 to see the beautiful little town of Funchal on the island of Madeira. We’ve gotten out of the habit of researching everywhere we go before we get there, which now seems to be a bit of a hazard of full time travel. The truth is, the only things we knew about Madeira before we actually got there were that the island is owned by Portugal and that they make a sweet, fortified wine there called (duh) Madeira wine.
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| Funchal’s Cathedral |
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| Pre-Fab Jetty “Jacks” Taller Than 2 Men (Compare to the Busses in the Background) |
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| Funchal From The Sky Tram, The Norwegian Epic in the Port |
We stepped off the Norwegian Epic and into Funchal blissfully unaware of what a delightful place it was. It will indeed be on our to-return-to list. It’s a rocky island, with no proper beaches: the shore is dominated by sheer cliffs, with the occasional boulder-patch instead of a beach. Funchal is the main town and the port where cruise ships obviously stop, but the main attractions of the island are of the natural scenery variety (the tallest sea cliffs in Europe) and that Madeira wine.
The shore excursions offered included some inland treks to see some of that Madeiran natural beauty, but we opted for a more leisurely stroll around Funchal. To save walking-and-finding time, we paid the $10 for a shuttle to take us from the port into town. From there we walked to the cathedral, along the water, and down towards a sky tram which we took up the side of the mountain facing the port of Funchal. While up the mountain we enjoyed splendid views and sampled a street vendor’s pan-fried bread with baked-in salami (never caught what they call it, but it was pretty darn tasty). Once back down, we went in search of one of Funchal’s top attractions according to TripAdvisor, Blandy’s Wine House.
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| 115 Year Old Madeira Wine at Blandy’s Wine House |
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| Our Flight of Madeira Wine, Dry to Sweet from Left to Right |
If you’ve read any number of our blogs, you know we love wine. So, with a curiosity of what Madeira wine is like, and reading about Blandy’s, you can guess where we spent the rest of our afternoon. Unfortunately the last tour ended at the time we were supposed to meet the last shuttle back to the Epic, so not daring to cut it that close, we skipped the tour and instead just wandered around the place ourselves, which was probably nearly as much fun. We eventually found ourselves in a tasting room enjoying a flight of samples. Without much vino-dialog, Madeira wine is a sweet dessert wine, made much the same way Portugal’s other and better-known fortified wine, port, is made. Blandy’s produces dry to sweet varieties, which we found to be more like sherry than port. Our tastes favored the medium-sweet.
Stay tuned, though perhaps a few years from now, for a return visit to Madeira.
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| Funchal, Madeira |
