This was our last port day and therefore a bit bittersweet. Even though we still had half the cruise ahead of us, I knew that after this day, the next time I would see the ship from the outside, I would not get on again. Still, this was the port that along with Barcelona I had looked forward to the most.
I woke up just before our alarm went off. We got ready and headed to the Windjammer for some breakfast. Graham had oatmeal with brown sugar and dried fruit followed by some tinned peaches and pears. I had chicken congee with fried onions followed by tinned pears.
Once we had finished our breakfast, we headed back to the cabin to collect what we needed for the day. As we were opening the door, the announcement came that the ship had been cleared. We quickly collect what we needed and headed downstairs to the gangway. The ship had been cleared very early and there were not many people ready to get off. Once we were outside, we quickly stopped for our last port photos. Then we headed for the shuttle stop.
For the shuttle in Madeira, we were able to book the shuttles ahead of time through the app. I had booked the first available shuttle, which was supposed to be at 09:00. However, there was a shuttle already waiting and it left about 5 minutes after we got on. According to the description on the app, the shuttle drop off was near the cable car, which is where we wanted to go. The term “near” is obviously relative. We could not even see the cable car station from where we were dropped off and this is quite a feat as you can see the cable car from most places in Funchal. Fortunately, the bus driver pointed us in the right direction. The walk was not particularly far, but it was not obvious where to go.
When we got to the cable car station, it was still closed. The opening time was 09:00 There were people at the ticket desks, and we could see the cable cars go up and down empty. We were quite close to the front of the line. There were only two sets of people in front of us. However, the line soon was huge, and they still did not open the doors until just after 09:00. Still, once the doors were open, we could proceed straight to a ticket desk and soon we were on our way.
Near the top of the cable car, there are two interesting gardens, and we had planned to visit both. Monte Palace Tropical Garden is adjacent to the cable car that comes up from Funchal. Going in the other direction from the cable car station, there is another cable car that goes to Madeira Botanical Garden. We had planned to visit both gardens and take the cable cars to get to and from Funchal and to and from the Botanical Garden. I had planned that we would go to Monte Palace Tropical Garden first, but that morning, Graham suggested that we should go to the Botanical Garden first. I was happy with that change of plan. Neither of us had a clear idea of the lay of the land and that decision ended up changing our day quite significantly. However, this was probably for the best.
When we got to the top of the cable car, we turned right towards the cable car for the Botanical Garden. There was a small area with shops on the way and I figured I would check this out on the way back. Opposite the ticket office is the Chapel Of Babosas. The original chapel was built in 1906 but was destroyed when Madeira was hit by catastrophic floods in February 2010. It was rebuilt and reopened in 2022. I figured there may be mass in there when we got there as it was a Sunday morning but thought I could have a quick look when we got back.
When we got to the ticket booth, this was still closed. Graham went exploring. I had a quick look if there was another ticket booth and then I went back to wait. Unfortunately, in the meantime a tour group had arrived. When the ticket desk opened, the tour leader had a lengthy discussion with the member of staff at the ticket booth, but eventually he had his tickets, and they were on their way. There were another couple of people in front of me, but they did not take very long to get their tickets. They were selling combination tickets to cover the roundtrip on the cable car as well as the admission to the Botanical Garden. This sounded good to me.
I went to follow Graham down the hill in direction of the entrance of the cable car. There was just one issue with this. I could not see Graham anywhere. Before I had time to panic, he turned up. He had gone for a short hike up one of the levadas that Madeira is so famous for. Levadas are a system of channels or aqueducts that transport water from the wet northwestern region of Madeira to the dry south. They also provide walks that can range from easy and gentle to extremely challenging. The one that Graham came across was apparently pretty hair raising. I was glad that I did not get tangled up with this.
We headed for the entrance of the cable car station. The rather big tour group was ahead of us, but the line was moving steadily. About 15 minutes later, we were on a cable car. This was a pretty ride, but also somewhat unusual. The Botanical Garden was essentially straight ahead of us with no visible change in elevation. However, we had quite a steep decent towards the bottom of the valley only to have to go back up again to the same elevation at which we had started.
There was a short walk from the cable car station to the actual entrance of the Botanical Gardens. We walked past a huge souvenir shop and a café on the way. As soon as we entered the Botanical Garden, I had a bit of a eureka moment. When I did my research, I had read one website that I found that the Botanical Garden is at an altitude of between 200 and 350m. This was the only place where I saw this mentioned. As this was somebody’s blog and it read like it was translated into English through Google translate. I figured that this information was a combination of guesswork and bad translation especially as the two official websites for Madeira did not mention anything about this at all. However, as soon as we entered the Botanical Garden, it became very obvious that there is a significant change of elevation.
The Botanical Garden is beautiful. There are over 2000 plants from all over the world and for the most part they appear in quite a natural setting. There are some flower beds, but for the main part, the Botanical Garden is not landscaped. This is actually how we prefer it to be. There were chicken wandering around all over the place, which provided some amusement.
Our first stop was a lake with a fountain and some fish. This was a nice peaceful spot, and we stayed there for a while. Then we moved on to a viewpoint. Graham found a route that did not involve steps and was not too steep. We had a nice view of the ship and over Funchal. We also saw the cable car.
We continued exploring. We walked through a forest area with all kinds of interesting trees. We also saw a lot of birds in this area. Some of them we had come across in Tenerife and Porto Santo, but most of them were new to us. Eventually we came towards the more structure part of the Botanical Gardens. There is a house in the middle of this. After we passed this, there was an area with plants that are local to this part of the world. There was also an area with succulents and cacti. As this area is on terraces, we had nice views over the ocean, too.
We stopped at a café that was in that area as we were both thirsty. I asked Graham to just pick something for me. He came back with two glasses of the most delicious freshly squeezed orange juice. I have never had orange juice with such a deep colour, and it tasted so fresh that I think the oranges may still have been on a tree that morning. Once we had finished our drinks, we quickly used the bathroom and then we moved on.
We were just about the area that I had seen online and that had prompted me to look into this further. This is the most structured part of the Botanical Garden and features a mosaic made from flowers as well as topiaries. The area does look stunning. I had planned to just take some photos from the walkway above and then turn around and return the way we came. Graham commented that by doing this, we would miss the bird park. He was OK with whatever I decided. I was torn. Already returning to where we had started would be quite a hike. However, we probably had covered only about half of the change of elevation. The path ahead looked pretty steep. It was nothing that I could not handle, especially as we were on no particular timetable. However, there was no way my knee would have put with coming all the way back up. After looking at a map, I realised that there was an exit at the bottom with a taxi rank. We decided to carry on and take a taxi back into Funchal.
The walk to the bottom was pretty. This was mainly open parkland. We did come past an amphitheatre, and we stopped there for a while to sit down and relax. Then we pushed on to the area where the bird park used to be. As soon as we got there, it became obvious that the bird park is no more. Not only was the access blocked by a gate, but the whole area felt abandoned. The doors to the aviaries were all open, but there were definitely birds in some of the aviaries. I am not sure if they left the birds in there in the hope that they will leave and find new homes or if local birds realised that there was shelter to be had and moved in. Whatever the story, this felt somewhat surreal.
There was nothing else in this direction and we headed for the exit. Fortunately, there were taxis waiting just outside the exit. I had given up on visiting the other garden, but there was one last thing on my to do list. I am quite partial to the local fortified wine. When we visited Madeira on a cruise in 2010, we went for a tour of Blandy’s wine Lodge. Blandy’s is probably the most high-profile producer of Madeira wine. The company was founded in 1811 and has been run by the same family ever since. Blandy’s carries the distinction that it is the only company from Madeira’s original wine trade to be still in business. I have no idea how their wine ranks in terms of quality, but they must be doing something right if they managed to stay in business for so long. I was not in the market for a tour as I had done this before. They do however have a tasting room where they offer various tasting packages on a first come first served basis. This is what I was hoping to do. I asked the taxi driver to drop us off at Blandy’s Wine Lodge.
Blandy’s Wine Lodge is quite a big building. The driver had dropped us off in front of the shop. I went inside and they told me where to find the tasting room. The building is a bit of a rabbit warren, and I was just about to give up when I saw a sign for the tasting room. They were closing for lunch about 30 minutes later, but I did not fancy hanging around Funchal for two hours. I also figured 30 minutes is plenty for a tasting. Graham is pretty indifferent to Madeira wine. It is not that he dislikes it. He will quite happily have some if it is put in front of him. However, he will not go out of his way to have Madeira wine. He found himself a seat in the courtyard outside the tasting room and let me get on with my tasting.
They offer a wide range of tastings. Horizontal tastings are designed to compare a range of wines of the same age but of different styles. Vertical tastings are designed to compare a range of wines of the same style/grape but of different ages. They also offer tastings with wines of the same age and style but from different brands and grapes. When I went up to the counter to check what my options are, the person assisting me recommended a horizontal tasting of 10-year-old wines. This consisted of four tastes and was surprisingly good value at €12. The different styles were dry, medium dry, medium sweet and sweet. I normally have a bit of a sweet tooth when it comes to wine. However, even though I enjoyed all of them and would happily drink all of them again, my favourite was the dry Madeira.
Once I had finished my tasting, we headed back in the general direction of the shuttle stop. Funchal is such a pretty city, but it was Sunday, and a lot was closed. It was also very hot, and we were essentially done walking. Graham had seen an interesting fountain up ahead and suggested that we should make a slight detour to have a look. We walked past a beautiful building on the way. I took a few photos on the way to the fountain and then back to the ship. When we got to the shuttle area, there were plenty of shuttles waiting. Everybody got a seat and once most seats were taken, we left and headed back to the ship.
Once we were back on the ship, we quickly went to our cabin to drop off our stuff. We found another cabin mate. I took a quick photo and then we went up to the Windjammer for some lunch. Graham had a glass of chardonnay with his lunch. He had a DIY salad followed by some fusilli carbonara. He had some white chocolate chip cookies for his dessert. I had a pork schnitzel with garlic aioli and macaroni cheese. I had a look at the desserts, but there was nothing that grabbed me. Instead, I got a bowl of lentil dal, which was delicious. I had enough alcohol for the time being and had some fruit punch with lunch.
After lunch, we took a turn around the sun deck. It was beautiful up there. There were also round loungers available. This was extremely tempting. We briefly headed back to the cabin. Graham picked up his telescope and I picked up my iPad. It was nice to just spend time together relaxing. The views were not too shabby either. Suddenly I realised that it was nearly time for trivia @ 5. I did not want our nice relaxing time to end, and Graham was OK with sitting out the trivia as well. We enjoyed watching the sail out from our lounger. Then we headed downstairs to the pool deck.
I fancied an ice cream and stopped at Sprinkles for some vanilla ice cream. Graham went ahead to the Roy bar. I soon caught up with him. We both had a drink of the day, which was a Gin Buck. This consisted of Beefeater gin, citrus, and ginger ale. I am a bit of a Gin snob, and my tastes are normally more refined than Beefeater gin. However, this was refreshing and delicious.
When we had finished our drink, we went back to the cabin for a quick shower and to get changed. Then we went downstairs to get some photos. There were two backdrops out and this did not take very long. Then we headed to the dining room for dinner.
The menu that evening was A Taste of Asia. When this menu was introduced, I was hugely excited. I do love Asian food in all varieties. We also had their take on Asian food on cruises from China and Singapore and this was always delicious. During the first two cruises after the introduction of the new menus, this did not appear as there are some regional variations to the menus. Apart from the standard menus (Welcome on Board, A Taste of France, A Taste of Italy, Welcome to Royal Night and Bon Voyage) that seem to appear on every cruise of 7 nights or longer, there are some menus that are inspired by where the cruise is actually sailing to. On our Med cruise, we had A Taste of the UK and A Taste of the Mediterranean and on our Mexican Riviera cruise, we got a Taste of the USA and a Taste of Mexico. I was delighted when A Taste of Asia turned up on our back-to-back Alaska cruises last May. However, the execution did not thrill me although there are some elements that I really like.
Graham started with the salmon gravlax , which consisted of cured Atlantic salmon with thinly sliced cucumber, onion and tomatoes, lemon, capers, and a honey-mustard dressing. I started with the Chicken and cabbage dumplings with a soy and sesame dipping sauce, which is one dish on this menu that I really enjoy. For his main course, Graham had grilled chicken breast with roasted potatoes, carrots, spinach, and a savoury thyme jus. I decided to give the sweet & Sour Pork another chance. This is described as Cantonese style sweet and sour pork with golden pineapple, red peppers, and Jasmine rice. I really don’t understand what they are doing with their sweet and sour pork. Cantonese style sweet and sour pork contains pork that is battered and fried so that it is crispy. Well, their sweet and sour pork always seems to be soggy. I have had this dish in food courts where things are kept warm for extended periods of time and yet the pork or chicken was still crispy. I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and tried again, but it tasted the same as it had on the Alaska cruise. I won’t be having this on any future cruises. For his dessert, Graham had the vegan lychee tart with fresh strawberries. I had the mango tapioca pearls with a five-spice mango compote. I had decided to be adventurous on our second Alaska cruise that year and give this a try. This was a surprise success, and it actually turned out to be one of my favourite desserts across all the menus. I had looked forward to having this again and it did not disappoint on this occasion either. We had our usual Chateau St. Michelle Riesling with dinner.
After dinner we headed back to the cabin. We got ready for bed. I read for a short while, but soon we were both asleep.
Dolphingirl’s Travels 
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