April 17, Madeira
A somewhat longer flight this morning took us to Funchal in Madeira, an island southeast of the Azores and, like the Azores, an Autonomous Region that is also part of Portugal. And, yes, the fortified sweet wine called Madeira comes from here.
After settling into our hotel room, we met our local guide, Graça, and visited the shop of a maker of Madeira wine. We got to sample a couple of different vintages and styles. I don't think I had ever had Madeira before - it's similar in concept to Port, but both Leslie and I decided that we liked Port better.
Graça then led us on a whirlwind walking tour of a market and a garden, ending up at a cathedral. After that, we had dinner in a local restaurant.
April 18, Madeira
The big event for this day was a "Cetacean Observation tour" in an inflatable Zodiac boat. We were familiar with smaller versions of these boats from earlier tours, but these had rows of actual seats. We were taken out into the water and, delightfully, saw not one, not two, but three different species: Bottlenose Dolphin, Blainville's Beaked Whale and Fin Whale. Not so delightfully, I had made the poor decision to try a camera mode I had not played with before, and ended up with some two thousand useless shots, mostly out of focus or of just open water or sky. A few shots were salvagable, however, and the experience was unforgettable.
After lunch, most of our group took an optional excursion to western Madeira. We first stopped in the town of Câmara de Lobos, where Winston Churchill stayed for a while and did some painting. Several businesses are named after him, and there's a statue of him painting, with a chair nearby for tourists to take selfies with.
We were then led into one of the many bars and served glasses of poncha, a tasty local drink made with Madeira Rum, sugar cane honey, lemon juice and orange juice. When one of our group asked what the wooden tool being used to mix the drink was called, Mafalda blushed, lowered her voice, and admitted she didn't want to say because the commonly used Portuguese name sounds naughty. (It is caralhinho (little cock), a type of muddler.)
