April 18, Madeira (contd.)
Continuing on, we went up and up to one of the highest sea cliffs in the world, Cabo Girão, 589 meters (1932 feet). A glass-bottomed walkway let you step out over the cliff, though the glass was so scuffed up it was hard to see through. The views were breathtaking, regardless.
Our last stop of the day was at a viewpoint some 1060 meters (3477 feet) up in the mountains, Eira do Serrado.
We were on our own for dinner this evening, and on a previous venture out I had spotted a menu for a restaurant called MadMarket, and we went there. It was on the second floor of a small shopping mall, and we hoped we weren't going to repeat the poor experience of Block House in Lisbon. We didn't - the food and service was wonderful, some of the best on this trip. I had Portuguese Steak, a dish I had tried at several different places before, but this was the best. Leslie had Black Scabbard fish; she was given the choice of bone in or a filet - she chose bone-in because of the added flavor, and she loved it. The menu is constantly changing, based on what they can get.
April 19, Madeira
This was the last day of the main tour. We drove to the town of Ribeiro Frio and did a walk along an irrigation channel called a levada, using a path named Levada dos Balcões, proceding at our own pace. The path ended at an overlook, which was beautiful in itself, but the real fun was that there were birds called chaffinches who would eat seeds from your hand (bags of seeds were sold at a nearby souvenir store.)
Then it was on to the town of Porto da Cruz to visit the Engenhos do Norte rum factory. There were large trucks piled with sugar cane, a worker shoveling the cane into hoppers, and the noisy cooking and rendering of the cane juice.
On the way back to the hotel, we stopped briefly in the town of Santanna and viewed triangular houses with thatched roofs, once common to the area. In years past you could go into these, but now they're just for display. Back in Funchal, it was time to prepare for the Farewell Dinner, though some of us would be continuing with Mafalda to mainland Portugal.
