Funchal
Page 1

Funchal (Madeira), Portugal-Part 1

We docked in the port of Funchal (so named because when the Portuguese sailors first arrived the natural harbor

was surrounded by fennel and smelled strongly of the licorice-like plant) around 8 am and found a Royal

Caribbean behemoth (3500-4000 passengers) already in port. This always means that the popular sights will be

more crowded. We took our time with breakfast and walked our ship taking photos before getting off as we did

not have a scheduled tour and were on our own. We talked to the local tourism guy before disembarking and he

made some suggestions, some things we had not thought about and some that we had clippings about in the file.

Funchal is a lovely city with a long promenade along the harbor and is built up against some mountains so the

buildings spill down the hills to the port. Our first plan was to walk along the promenade until we reached the

"teleferico" or cable car which clims to Monte, an area at the top of the hills. Rob got us tickets and I stood in the

long long line with all the Brits from the other ship, a bunch of European tourists and a group of Portuguese

teenagers on Spring Break or Easter holidays. The line moved relatively quickly and in 20-30 minutes we were

running to get into one of the cable cars (they don't stop) with a British couple and a German couple. The ride up

was pretty fantastic as you will see by the photos. The cable car dips quite close to the roofs of the homes and you

can see that everyone has a garden even though the houses are all close together and built on very steep land. We

hopped off in Monte and went to visit the Jardim Botanica, a huge sub-tropical/tropical garden built on the

grounds of a palace of some minor royalty and which slopes down for probably 3-4 kilometers. There are several

museums on the grounds and the exhibit of minerals was actually very interesting, as it shows what some of the

jewels we might wear look like in their natural state.
 

The gardens are very well maintained but because of the slopes on which they are built there is a lot of walking up

and down hills and staircases. We did not cover the whole area as we wanted to do something else, something

"very touristy", and we needed to be back up at the Monte level to do it.