{"id":4692,"date":"2024-04-12T17:54:56","date_gmt":"2024-04-12T17:54:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=4692"},"modified":"2025-12-24T21:48:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T21:48:31","slug":"3-madeira","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=4692","title":{"rendered":"3. MADEIRA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hours at sea to come!\u00a0 Hours and hours.\u00a0 With an ‘interesting” rolling swell from the starboard side.\u00a0 Ten metre swell from somewhere out over the Eastern horizon.\u00a0 All the way from the Gulf of Mexico, possibly.\u00a0 And possibly only 10 feet, not 10 metres.\u00a0 However, the stabilisers on this vessel (if indeed it has any) are old technology and don’t seem to work properly!\u00a0 Or at all!\u00a0 Not good.\u00a0 Everyone was staggering about.\u00a0 I don’t know how the waiters managed to carry heavy trays of food around with no accidents!\u00a0 But, manage they did!\u00a0 I think a fair few tablets were swallowed today by a significant proportion of the customer base!<\/p>\n

It was clear that the harmonics of the rolling motion had set up a Seiche wave in a fore and aft direction in the swimming pool.<\/p>\n

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The pool was half empty before things settled down!<\/p>\n

When we woke the next morning, the dawn was just dawning over Madeira.\u00a0 The street lights of Funchal showed the routes up the hillside.\u00a0 \u00a0And “up” is the right word.\u00a0 Everything here is sloping upwards (or downwards, depending on your perspective).<\/p>\n

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We were moored immediately in front of a massive German boat – AIDAsol.\u00a0 Last time we saw an Aida ship (AIDAperla) was in the Norwegian fjords, where it disgorged it’s 3,300 German tourists and swamped Eidfjord just as we arrived on the scene.\u00a0 (See earlier post for full details!)<\/p>\n

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We can expect to tangle with German tourists today!\u00a0 Let’s hope they aren’t all headed our way.<\/p>\n

Our day’s excursion took us first to the tiny, but colourful, fishing village of C\u00e2mara de Lobos.<\/span><\/p>\n

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We were told about a locally caught, deep water fish, the Black Scabbard Fish.\u00a0 Apparently delicious, but you have to eat this fish BEFORE you see one!<\/p>\n

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Nasty teeth!\u00a0 So, now you can’t eat scabbard fish – because you have seen one!<\/p>\n

We found the Winston Churchill Hotel near the harbour.<\/p>\n

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Apparently, he used to come here to paint.\u00a0 We also stumbled on the tiny Capella de Nossa Senhora de Concei\u00e7\u00e3o.\u00a0 Tiny, but beautiful!<\/p>\n

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Walking a little way out of the village, away from all the German tourists, we got our first clear view of the cliffs of Cabo Gir\u00e3o.<\/p>\n

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At 580 metres, it is the second highest sea cliff in the Canaries.\u00a0 Los Gigantes, on Tenerife, are allegedly higher, but it kind of depends on how you measure things.\u00a0 I think the only higher cliffs we have seen have been those at Preikestolen on Lysefjord in Norway.<\/p>\n

Anyway, these cliffs are plenty high.\u00a0 With a skywalk.\u00a0 With a glass floor.\u00a0 Looking straight down!<\/p>\n

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Next stop, Porto Moniz at the North West tip of the island.\u00a0 With the calm seawater swimming pools contained amongst the larval intrusions with massive waves outside!<\/p>\n

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The last stop of the day was at Arco da Calheta for a walk on the promenade with a beach made of Saharan sand!\u00a0 And protected by massive man-made barriers.<\/p>\n

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Our trip covered 86 miles.\u00a0 A longish day, but with some great views.<\/p>\n

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Madeira is an amazing island.\u00a0 But the only walking we could do would be on the few short beach-side promenades or on the paths adjacent to the levadas.\u00a0 There are more than 1,350 miles (1,170km) (possibly many more) of these water distribution channels.\u00a0 The water level falls by just 10 m in every kilometre.\u00a0 As I say, ideal for walking.\u00a0 You just have to get up to them!\u00a0 And down after, of course!<\/p>\n

Off to Tenerife tomorrow…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hours at sea to come!\u00a0 Hours and hours.\u00a0 With an ‘interesting” rolling swell from the starboard side.\u00a0 Ten metre swell from somewhere out over the Eastern horizon.\u00a0 All the way from the Gulf of Mexico, possibly.\u00a0 And possibly only 10… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-regent-seven-seas-cruise-travels-in-2024"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4692"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4713,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4692\/revisions\/4713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}