Revisiting Madeira...

Today we docked at Funchal, Madeira. We came here earlier in the year and we were surprised how nice a place it was - very colourful with lots of flowers and quite a lot of green spaces and it's pretty because all the houses are white with red roof very Portuguese.  

So having already checked out rhe town, we decided to be a bit more adventurous and after a lot of faffing which I won't bore you with -  we finally rented a car for the day and took off up the hill -  the seriously big hill - the very windy, tiny, narrow, hairpin, bendy road... scarily exhilarating.  We reached the very highest point of the island which is called Pico do Areeiro,  it's 1818m or something like that, and done, obviously very easily in the car🤣. 

About halfway up we drove through the cloud base and then at the top we were just looking across this white fluffy cotton wool skyline with the most amazing volcanic crags completely surrounding the high point.   Huge soaring peaks...deep Valleys... little villages scattered in the distance.  There were quite a lot of hiking trails. The parking was limited to one hour I think they're trying to encourage group visits rather than individuals but an hour was enough.  Dr Fred took off on one of the trails he had spotted a little terraced viewpoint you could see in the distance -  he didn't go there - he went completely off piste up a craggy bit instead but it made him happy. 

Then we got back in the car and went down the incredibly windy narrow (getting very busy) road and across the other side of the island to Santana where we have a very pleasant lunch sat on the terrace of a cafe and went to look at the little houses which are reknowned in the area.  They were the first houses to be built there made from thatch and wood probably because this was material that was readily available cheap easy to souce..  Some of them have been restored and have now become a huge tourist attraction-  and apparently tomorrow in my art class we're going to draw them.  So I thought it would be good to actually have seen one for real. 

After Santana we headed to the Cabo Girao which is one of the highest cliffs in the world...  at 589 meters.  It has a metal and glass floor that you can stand on and look through and I have to say it made me feel a bit wobbly.  It is a marvelous cliff face and really weirdly the cliffs all around it have got houses built into them and very peculiarly about halfway up a very steep hillside they seem to be building a swimming pool.  Be interesting to come back next year and see if it's actually being used.

We'd had enough of windy roads by this time so we just headed back to the car and then back to the ship to do the genuine Portuguese barbecue we'll see how that comes out...