Tuesday 10th January, Funchal, Madeira.

At 7.30 this morning, the shipped berthed into Funchal, Madeira.  We were still in bed at the time, and, as often happens, we ended up having to close the curtains quickly.  We did't want to scare the guys on the dock with our pink and crinklies!

Now we've been to Funchal quite a few times, and decided that we weren't in a hurry to get ashore, since we knew the city quite well.  We were just going to have quiet meander and get ourselves some bottled water for the forthcoming days onboard.  We caught the shuttle bus in, and with camera's in hand, started to wander the streets looking for a supermarket or a Spar. 

I loved the bright colours here.  Apparently the blue post box is for mail across the island, and red for international post

A charmlingly decorated tuk tuk

As we wandered, we came across the Cathedral, which is celebrating a 500 year anniversary.  For the first time during our visits to Madeira, it  was open to tourists.  So we took a look inside.



<<< One of the very highly decorated chapels.  Really very lovely.

Like many Portuguese cities, pavements, roads and buildings are all decorated in symmetrical  black and white

We also managed to visit the College church, which was even more highly decorated than the cathedral.  For 1 Euro, you could visit the bell tower. 

 I was practising my composition lessons again, but you can see from the photo above what glorious weather we were having.  And below, the hills of the island look so inviting.

And last, but not least, as we were walking back to the shuttle bus we came across these little fellas under a fountain in one of the courtyards.  They were so still they looked like statues.  Awesome.

We didn't find the water until the last minutes as we made our way back to shuttle bus.  But we've had a lovely morning.  The ship sets sail at 2pm and we'll be on our way to the Cape Verde islands.  We've visited them quite a few times, but I'm looking forward to seeing the changes since my last visit in 2014.

Tomorrow will be another sea day, more classes and more sunshine hopefully.  Fingers crossed.