Saturday May 30, 2026
Hi All! Can you believe we’ll be home in exactly two weeks?? Neither can we! 141 days flew by way too quickly! While I know we’ll be sad leaving our new “cruise family” we met, we’ll be happier to see all our family and friends again! Ready or not, here we come!
Today we were docked in the city of Funchal on the island of Madeira which is part of Portugal. When the Portuguese came to this island they saw lots of wild fennel growing here. Their name for fennel is Funcha so they named the port city Funchal.
We did a 7 hour tour called “Santana & the North Coast” and no, we did not get to see Carlos Santana… BUMMER! But the town of Santana was really cool. But we started the tour with a drive up to the highest point (6,800 feet) on the island called Pico do Areeiro.
It reminded me of our tour yesterday since the island was very mountainous with many beautiful valleys and ravines. And the weather was picture perfect with hardly a cloud in the sky and a high of 70. Perfect for walking around.
I’ll let the pictures of the mountain views tell the story. We then drove to Ribeiro Frio (which means cold river) where they had beautiful views and a Rainbow Trout fishery (weird combo!). It had a cute little Church dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima but it also had a much needed bathroom stop!
After that we drove to the town of Santana (named after Saint Anna) and had lunch. The food was very good. I had fish that’s unique to Madeira called Black Skabbard. It’s a deep water fish that looks like a long eel (very ugly but very tasty!). It was a very nice town and we walked around for a little after lunch.
We then drove thru Faial and Porto de Cruz to a place called Portela Pass for a viewpoint photo stop. Like all the other places, the views were amazing. The island reminded me of La Palma from yesterday as well as Hawaii.
Our last stop was the seaside town of Machico, a small fishing village of 20,000 where they mostly fish for tuna. It had a nice boardwalk as well as some nice shops. I know, I know… I gotta quit buying for the grandkids! But I can’t help it, they’re so darn cute!
We got back to the ship around 5 PM. We were invited to a World Cruise dinner outside at the pool grill at 6 PM so we had to quickly change and shower. But I was beat and we lose another hours sleep tonight so I sent Kathy off to the event and I chilled and got room service.
There was a 9:30 PM show of the Guest Entertainer Comedian named Jay McGee. He was kind of funny the other night but we didn’t think he was that great so we skipped the show tonight. Tomorrow is a much needed sea day! YAY! Hope everyone had a great day!
PS: Did you know the soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo was born in Madeira and one of my grand dog’s was named after him? Small world! Lol
The Wandering Italian 