We arrived at Funchal at sunrise and I was out on my balcony watching the arrival into the port.
I have to say this is one of my favourite ports to sail into or out of.
It is spring and the lilac trees are just coming into bloom.
Arriving in Funchal and Lilac trees in bloom
Today is a national holiday in Madeira so it will be interesting to see what is open.
The plan today is to do a few Geocaches and one in particular called By cablecar or not that is a puzzle. I managed to solve this puzzle prior to leaving home so now it was up to me to now find it.
view of the church from the ship that was part of Puzzle cache
Today we headed ashore with my daughter and kissaimee headed off and walked from the ship into Funchal stopping along the way on the pier at Welcome to the Pearl of the Atlantic where we signed the log and kissaimee dropped a travel bug. From here we headed into town and up the hill to do another cache or two on our way to Parque Santa Catarina.
This is great city park with many flowers and a large fountain.
walking to Parque Santa Catarina. note almost no traffic.
little building in the park
flowers in Parque Santa Catarina.
Fountain in Parque Santa Catarina.
view of the ship from Parque Santa Catarina.
From the garden we headed towards the cable car so we could take it to the top and do the puzzle cache listed above.
Along the way we stooped near the cable car at a restaurant to order some sandwiches to take with us to the top. Now this is where it gets weird, the server recognized my daughter and I from last year at a restaurant we ate at at the pier. He served us and we couldn’t believe him but he told us who we were with and this convinced us that in fact he did remember.
We took our food and boarded the cable car to the top where there is a garden and the geocache we were going to do.
Philatsea and kissamiee
We stopped at a stone bench along the wall and had our lunch then went to the view point at the top where we ran into our friends from Germany.
Phil and Christian
view from the top
walking back to the cable car
view from the cable car on the way down
After spending some time at the top we headed back down on the cable car and then work our way back to the ship.
The following is of some of the Gardens and places we passed along the way.
Philatsea and daughter taking the trip down
view from cable car
walking down one the roads back to the ship
many of the roads have tables and chairs and are closed to cars
Garden in downtown Funchal
It is rough back on board. Real Grass and blankets and wine and cheese party as we sail away from Funchal
another view of the wine and cheese party
people from the shore waving goodbye
people from the shore waving goodbye
wow this city is amazing
a view of the Socorro – GC2RZFG – I could tell you where the cache is, or should I say where I found it last year but that wouldn’t be fair. 😉
Having a Red Stripe from Jamaica as we sail away from Funchal.. it was a rough day…
I have to say Funchal is one of the civilized cities I have visited. Public WI-fi in most plazas makes things easy when one has a daughter who wants to call home and talk to Mom and her Boyfriend. I use Skype for this. I pay $3.00 a month for unlimited calls to phones in Canada and the USA from aywhere in the world. It works great 95% of the time.
The one thing I like about Geocaching is I end up going off the beaten path that others on the ship would not go. I ended up walking over 10 km today and got exercise in the process.