May 5 – Funchal, Madeira, Portugal. We've been here before but were glad to be stopping again. It's a lovely place with nice people and very good facilities.
Funchal is named for fennel, the herb. The city is 500 years old. It's built on a very hilly section of the island that is cut by deep ravines; consequently the roads go every direction with only a very small section of the city right next to the ocean that has anything near rectangular blocks. There are many bridges spanning deep craggy ravines and roads that run along the edges of those same valleys. Most intersections are odd shaped; often three to five streets intersect. Traffic would be a mess except Maderians are the most patient and polite drivers I've ever seen. The only traffic law I saw being broken was jaywalking and I'm not even sure that's illegal here. Even then the jaywalkers were very careful to cross quickly and only when no traffic is coming.
The people are very friendly and open. They smile at you and nod. If you give them a 'bon gia' (good morning) or 'boa tarde' (good afternoon) they smile even bigger and respond. All the walking up and down hills keeps them in shape. There are flowers everywhere; a mixture of tropical and temperate plants that you don't usually see. In the suburbs and countryside the hills are terraced and the 5 to 12 foot wide terraces are used to grow bananas and grapes. It's so steep that the walls holding up each terrace are usually as high or higher than the terrace is wide.
Many of the sidewalks and plazas are cobbled with mosaics in white and gray stone. Sometimes the figures are just geometrical; sometimes they are people, animals or symbols. It's a nice touch. When I first saw this type of sidewalk I thought they were small tiles but then we came on some that were under repair and saw that they are actually long, rectangular stones set on end, true cobblestones.
Several streets have been closed to traffic and are lined with shops and cafes. Most of the closed streets are completely lined with cobbles. The main street by the ocean is Avenida do Mar. It has the marina, port and some recreational facilities on the ocean side and shops and restaurants on the shore side. Right at the intersection with the main street going up hill they have two very exclusive restaurants, Pizza Hut and Micky D's. Both were very busy by the way.
On the seawall opposite the docking locations, visiting ships have painted memorials to their visits. Some are very simple affairs and some are quite elaborate. One was by a US Coast Guard Cutter, the Dallas and another by the crew of the Prinsendam in 2006.
Madeira is noted for its wines. They say they have four styles made from four different grapes, sercial (dry taste, light color), verdelho (medium dry, golden color), bual (medium sweet, dark gold color) and malmsey (the very first grape brought to the islands, sweet, chestnut brown). I am here to tell you that all the wines, regardless of their description, are sweet by our standards. It was very popular in colonial America because, as a fortified wine, it won't oxidize in the bottle and could be safely shipped to the new world.
One of Diana's favorite activities anywhere in the world is here, the basket sleigh. Since Funchal is built on hills with the city center along the ocean getting into and back from town was a problem especially for older folks. To add to the problem the upscale part of town, Monte, is far up the hillside. Sometime in the 1800s an army officer with an invalid wife designed a wicker basket sleigh on wooden runners that two men could use to glide her down the hill. Going up they used donkey carts, which proved to be unsafe going downhill. Today they use these sleighs as a tourist attraction.
Before heading up to Monte we drove out of town and high up into the hills to a viewpoint over Nun's Valley. This area was so isolated that up into the 1950s people would be born here and die never having seen the ocean. That's a bit odd as the ocean is only about five miles away. The mountains between here and the coast are so steep and rugged that the trip took days. In the 1950s a narrow winding, steep and very dangerous road was put in but as most of the villagers did not drive it made little difference. It was easier to get food and merchandise into the town. About 25 years ago a major road-building project started making it easier to get into the valley by digging tunnels and widening the road. It's still quite a trip in a large bus but cars and small trucks have a pretty easy time. Providing of course they don't meet a large bus coming the other way.
They've opened a hotel and gift shop at the foot of the trail you walk up to get the good view of Nun's Valley. They welcomed us with a cherry brandy and a piece of cherry cake. Most fruit brandies are either too sweet or so strong the fruit of origin is unidentifiable. This one was not. The cherry flavor was readily apparent and, while it was not weak, the alcohol content was not overbearing, as in grappa and the like. Thus fortified we headed up the trail for the good view.
It was a little too late in the day for a good picture of the valley. It's very steep on all sides and the little village sets on the small flat space in between. It's a pocket valley in that it's surrounded on all sides by mountains, there's no way out but up. The sun was very bright on two walls of the valley but the village was till in the shade with the other two. The contrast was extreme on only a lot of Photoshop work will salvage a picture even worth looking at of the whole scene. The sunny mountainsides could be photographed on their own, as could the village and the shady mountains but not the entire valley. It was a nice stop and a chance to see some very rugged country. The ride down the narrow road was as interesting as the ride up.
Because Funchal is built on many ridges running up the hillsides from the coast bridges abound in the city. One bridge, although not very long is probably 400 feet above the valley floor at the center. The drive across town from the city's edge to Monte is very interesting also. The view from the bus varies from about 4 inches from a stone retaining wall to a wide ocean vista.
After arriving in Monte we walked about 200 yards to a hilly street where they have wicker sleighs. It was not quite our turn for the ride so we walked us some stairs to check out the local church, the Church of Nossa Senhora do Monte (Our Lady of the Mount). This Portuguese Baroque church, completed in 1818, has the typical white and gray color scheme created when the flat parts of the volcanic rock walls are stuccoed and whitewashed. It has twin towers and a porch with the typical three-arched front (one arch for each member of the trinity).
The church is the principal pilgrimage site on the island. A local story about the appearance of an apparition of Mary nearby, coupled with stories of flood victims being miraculously rescued by a passing ship, have created a deep veneration of the statue of Mary that rests on the church's main altar. On Assumption Day, the day the Roman Catholic Church celebrates Mary's transport to heaven, pilgrims climb the 74 stairs in front of the church on their knees before entering the church to honor the small fifteenth century carving.
The church has one additional famous resident. Emperor Charles I of Austria, the last emperor of the Austria-Hungary Empire, is interred in a simple black metal coffin in a small side chapel. One might reasonably ask how the emperor of a powerful and vast empire might come to be interred in a small church on a remote Portuguese island. An excellent question, I'm glad you asked.
Charles I of Austria (aka Charles IV of Hungary) renounced participation in public affairs 1918 but never abdicated his crown. He may have set a record for 'royal lasts'. He was the last ruler of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, last Emperor of Austria, last King of Hungary, last King of Bohemia-Croatia, and the last King of Galicia and Lodomeria. He was also the last monarch in the famous line of the Habsburgs. A very impressive list of lasts. In 1921 he tried twice to regain his power but failed because he lacked support. Later that same year the Austrian parliament cancelled the Pragmatic Sanction ending the rule of the Habsburg family. After the second attempt he and his wife Zita, were taken into custody and transported to Madeira for exile. Not quite as isolated as Saint Helena, the very remote South Atlantic island where Napoleon was sent after his escape from Elba, but distant enough to insure that Charles would not mount a third attempt to regain his throne. Early the next year he caught pneumonia and died. He was interred in the church here and he's still there despite several attempts to have his remains moved to the Habsburg crypt in Vienna. Another odd fact is that both his and his wife's hearts are not on Madeira but are in the Loreto Chapel of Muri Abbey in the South Tyrol of Italy.
I never cease to be surprised at the things I discover while traveling. Sometimes the most remote places have connections to prominent and important events and people.
On either side of the church entrance there's a picture composed of glazed ceramic tiles called azulejos in Portuguese. In the fifteenth century the Moors taught the Spanish how to make glazed tiles and the Portuguese learned from them. From their beginnings as decorative accents on buildings in Portugal, their use expanded and soon they were covering entire buildings with multicolored geometric designs. This became very expensive and by the twentieth century they were again used as decorative accents. The two applications on this church's porch are moderate in size, 9 tiles wide by 8 tiles high (about 36 inches by 32 inches). One shows the last supper at the moment when Jesus offers the cup of wine. The other shows Mary appearing to the locals in the story that resulted in the building of the initial chapel where the church now stands. This technique of painting representative scenes directly on tiles was not begun until the sixteenth century and not perfected until the late seventeenth century. That period and the eighteenth century were the 'Golden Age' of azulejo art. These two scenes are done in the typical blue/white style of Delft china. They're signed by Manuel Souza Pereira and dated 1936. During the Art Nouveau movement of the twentieth century azulejo art had a resurgence that is still alive.
The square in front of the church has a great view of the harbor and city. The Prinsendam was easily the largest ship in port today, a status she does not often enjoy. There's a statue of Charles I of Austria there and he sure has a view worthy of an emperor.
Groups are starting to arrive at the wicker sleigh starting point so we descended the 74 stairs and joined the line. The ride is about a mile, about half the distance they used to travel when they were used as transportation. The last part of the trip would be through the heavily traveled streets of Funchal, not a very wise idea.
Two men dressed in white shirts and pants with straw skimmer hats alternately pull and ride the sleigh down the hill. They each have a rope hooked to the front of the sleigh's runners. They use this rope to whip you on your way and then each jumps on the back of one of the runners like the musher on a dog sled. They ride until the sleigh starts to go to slowly and then they jump off and whip you ahead again. Most parts of the hill are steep enough to keep the sleigh going quite nicely but occasional flat spots where a street crosses the road cause them to jump off and give you a boost. You probably never go faster than about 20 mph but they make the sled slide sideways and if you seem to be having fun they'll take you very close to the walls along the street and fast around the corners.
It's fun and Diana wants to do it every time we're here. They slow the sleigh by making it slide sideways. I could smell the wooden runners heating up. To help with the friction, the pilots (I thought about calling them drivers, guiders, pullers and even mushers but settled on pilots) carry grease soaked rags that they place on the street and drag the sleigh's runners over. The ride only lasts about 10 minutes but it's a unique experience and Diana loves it. I have to admit, I like it myself.
Our next stop was an embroidery shop. These places are somewhat unique. They design and produce embroidered items from wine bibs to large tablecloths. In the shop we visited they design the patterns and then produce the templates used to mark the pattern on the cloth. The templates are then painstakingly traced with a punch that produces the transfer paper. They wash and prepare the cloth and transfer the design's template to the cloth by placing the transfer paper on it and rubbing it with a sponge wetted with a water soluble blue solution. Once the cloth is marked with the pattern they use the water-soluble liquid to mark the colors to be used on the pattern.
The cloth and thread of the proper colors are then packaged and delivered to ladies all over the island that do the actual embroidery and any other sewing needed. For example, they make blouses so in addition to the embroidery; the blouse has to be assembled. Once that is completed the cloth is returned to the shop and washed again, ironed and put in inventory. The only additional processing here involves cutting the material away from some of the design if the embroidery surrounds a space that's a hole. The ladies who do that are really under pressure. They work with very small scissors and have to trim the cloth very close to the sewing but, of course, can't cut the embroidery threads. They work using lighted magnifiers and it's tedious, exacting work.
The finished products are beautiful. Some of it has so much of the material cut away it looks very much like lace. The shop has a retail outlet and the finished products are not cheap. The work is extremely well done and probably a good deal but I don't think I'd look that good in an embroidered blouse. Diana, however, did and we bought a simple white blouse with white embroidery. Very classy!
We decided to leave the tour downtown as they are heading back to the ship from here. Last time we were here we got tickets to the 'Hop on, Hop off' double-decker bus that circulates the city. That was fun and it gave me a pretty good idea of where things are in town so since the day was very pleasant we decided to walk.
The sidewalks and pedestrian streets are all cobbled here. The cobbles are white and the same gray color as the stone used to build the older buildings. They work designs into the walkways that are very attractive. Some are geometrical but others are representational. One popular subject is the caravel type sailing ship used by the Portuguese for exploring in the 1700s. It really adds a lot to the public spaces.
On our way across town we came upon a somewhat unique sight. Apparently this weekend is a flower festival and the median of the main cross-town street is being lined with flowers. The display takes up about 2 to 4 feet of the center of the median and consists of greenery and flowers laid out in various designs and patterns. They use flowers from daisies to orchids and the display goes on continuously for blocks. Well, it is interrupted by cross streets but where the median is uninterrupted, so is the display. Parts of it were done but other parts were still under construction. First they put down a base of greenery that lays flat on the sidewalk. Then they put metal forms on top of the greens to help place the flowers to create a pattern. Some areas are done freehand without a form. It looks like a very colorful carpet of flowers going down the street and it smells pretty good too.
After that it was back to the ship to prepare for our 4PM sail away. The location of the city should make this a pretty one. And it was!
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