Day 6, Fri 4th Feb, Another Seaday

Yesterday, we finished our coffee and blogs at the little cafe then went for a meander through Funchal, which is the capital city of Maderia.  It really is a very lovely city, full of wonderful buildings, and mosaic tiled streets.  Flowers , trees and sculptures.  Next to the “Banco de Portugal” are the local government buildings which used house a hospital, (amongst other things).  The tiling on the interior walls was fantastic, and inside the building (through open doorways), we could see the tiles on the staircases and in the halls.  Buildings like this can be found throughout the city.

We wandered back to the sea front where we spent our last Euro’s on Macdonalds  and icecream.  We walked past all the tour boats and ended up talking to a guy from Nottingham manning one of the sales booths.  The tour boats sail out and around the Maderia coast for about 3 hours with the aim of showing tourists dolphins, whales  and any other sea life making itself visible at the time.   We think, if we do come this way again, it might be something we would like to do.   The cost would be about 25-30 Euros each, which is about what we’d spent today on the Cable Car and sledge ride.  So not that expensive really.  We’ll see.

We got back to the ship tired and footsore.  A coffee then up on deck to watch the lovely city of Funchal and island of Maderia shrink away from us.   A bit of a rest in the cabin before we went for dinner and watched the magic act.

I have to be honest, I think I was spoilt on the Braemar during the Canaries cruise in regards to the evening entertainment, because it was of a very high standard.  Here on the Boudicca, I quite enjoyed the show the night before las.t, which was the Boudicca’s own Show Company, but  last night’s act didn’t really captivate me.  Tonight is the comedian, maybe he will be change my mind about the entertainment on here.

It is now midmorning and we are relaxing in the Iceni  Lounge before taking a wander out on deck.  The sea and sky are grey right now, but it may get better as we push south towards the Verde Islands.