Madiera and Home

21st February - Madeira

Today we arrived at one of our favourite stopovers, Funchal in Madeira.  We decided to walk up the hill from the port past Reid's Hotel to the Lido Area to visit Doreen's favourite shoe shop, however being a Sunday it was closed.  So we found a nice cafe and had coffee and muffins.

As our ship was leaving fairly early and time was short, we jumped in a cab to take us down to the Old Town area, where we looked at all the new sea defences before finding a nice restaurant for a light lunch.  As it had started to drizzle we chose a restaurant with a large outside canopy and we had two steak sandwiches (plus beer) and chatted to a very nice Scottish couple, who were on holiday in Madeira.  They told us that the weather had not been good all week and some of the flights were cancelled and they were hoping that theirs for tomorrow would take off.

After a pleasant lunch the rain had stopped so we strolled back through the Old Town admiring all the painted door fronts before walking along the Promenade back towards our ship.

We returned to the ship to admire Funchal from the top deck, where we could see the snow laying on the top of the mountain, an unusual sight for Madeira.  We then joined in the sail away party at 5.00pm to end another nice day in Funchal and set sail back home to Southampton.

There was just enough time before we had to get ready for dinner for us to catch the last sunlight of the day.

No journey back to Southampton would be complete without the traditional Chocoholics Tea.  I am pleased to say that Doreen chose a selection from the Diabetic table, although she was envious of Geoffrey's calorie filled collection of chocolate goodies.

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On Monday evening we had our art exhibition, which was visited by the Captain, where the art class had displayed their paintings created through the cruise.

We have continued our painting whilst crossing the Atlantic and are quite pleased with our amateur efforts.  This time we may continue to paint when we return to the UK!!!!

This will be our last Blog from this cruise as we are now fast approaching what we hope will be a calm Bay of Biscay and we really must start packing our six cases (or maybe seven).

This has been another successful cruise with fantastic ports of call.