The Plaza de España was a lovely little spot and full of interest. I’ve already mentioned some of the architecture around the area when we first walked along this part of Santa Cruz’s waterfront earlier in the day. The public square hosts a shallow lake that was sadly dry when we were there and the design of the lake was undertaken by the architects Herzog & de Meuron which tied in nicely with our very first cruise and the pre-cruise tour when we spent time in Beijing and got to visit another of their works, the Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium.

The plaza was originally the site of the Castle of San Cristóbel, the ruins of which were discovered during work to install the lake. We’d not realised it at the time, but you can view some of the remains in tunnels under the square, and it’s something we’d probably try to do when we next return.

We continued towards the port and passed a sculpture that caught my eye. Most sculptures catch my eye. This one was Arborea by Fernando García Ramos, and while it was clearly inspired by trees – the name was a big clue – I couldn’t help but notice that it also resembled the Sea Witch logo used by Princess Cruises.

Time for a little bit of ship-spotting now that we’d reached the port.

Firstly, here’s the aft view of our home for this sixteen-day cruise, Caribbean Princess, the only remaining Grand-class ship in the Princess Cruises fleet with that “shopping trolley handle” mounting configuration for Skywalkers nightclub. It may not be the prettiest aft view of a cruise ship but being able to ride the travelator to it is an experience that’s just not equalled on other ships.

Fred Olsen‘s Bolette was in port. At the time of writing this travelogue account we’ve only spent a single night in port on a Fred Olsen ship but we do have plans to cruise aboard Borealis in July 2026.

MSC Cruises Opera was the only other cruise ship docked in port but there were two ferries present, including one – Marie Curie – from Fred Olsen Express, the ferry service run by the operator in the Canary Islands. The other ferry was the Volcán de Tagoro, a fast catamaran ferry operated by Naviera Armas and named after an underwater volcano.

And that was that. We were now back aboard Caribbean Princess and we wouldn’t be getting off for another eight days. We ordered drinks to our balcony and sat out to enjoy the sailaway, watching the volcanic island slide past and give way to unbroken views of the ocean and sky.

We ate, we listened to music, we drank cocktails. All the things you do on cruise ships when you’re not in port. And because this was Caribbean Princess we rode the travelator to Skywalkers late in the evening to dance.

The next post in this transatlantic cruise travelogue series will cover the actual Atlantic crossing by Caribbean Princess.

We had a bit of a trek with some backtracking on occasion to get to the museum to start with and that is due to the two-dimensional nature of maps on phones and the three-dimensional nature of some of the roads in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. What looked like a sensible route on the phone ended up taking us over a bridge overlooking the museum before we realised we needed to find a way to descend, walk past, then double-back to the building’s location. Still, it was a fairly nice walk on a hot (but not too hot) day, we weren’t in a mad rush, and I always enjoy chances to snap photos of streets and architecture as we stroll around new places.

Santa Cruz de Tenerife is twinned with Rio de Janeiro and part of the reason for that is that both locations hold what are considered to be the two largest and most important carnivals in the world. I won’t pretend that either of us have great interest in carnivals – although I very much enjoyed visiting Notting Hill one year for all the people-watching and photographing it enabled – but we do like museums, especially ones with quirky or unique themes, so the Casa del Carnaval was always going to be something we’d try to look at.

Casa del Carnaval was inaugurated in 2017 and broadly features two main areas, one with a permanent exhibition including costumes and historical items such as posters for the themes of each year’s carnival. Upon arrival we had a short chat with the people at the entrance who were interested in knowing where we were from and who seemed quite surprised when we mentioned that we’d arrived on the cruise ship. That might suggest it’s not a popular attraction for cruisers (I think there were two other people there while we were exploring and they didn’t look like they’d got off the ship) and that might be explained by the many excursions that tend to take ship visitors off elsewhere on the island along with the museum’s location, far enough back from the waterfront and tucked away to require a dedicated visit as opposed to stumbling upon it by chance. We enjoyed the look around, though, and if it’s not something you’ve done before and you’re after something a little different then it’s well worth the walk to see.

Colourful museum visit complete, we now knew that the craft ale place we’d identified would be open so headed that way. This took us towards the coastline and port, and as we approached the Puente Serador bridge we spotted some very nice, large, and colourful (again) street art decorating the arches. Always love to see street art.

A short walk from there brought us to The Craft Room. It wasn’t a large place, only had a few beers on tap, but had a great range of bottled ales and seating that opened up onto a shaded, peaceful, public square. We stayed for several beers, chatted with some of the locals about the state of craft ales on the islands, and bought some glasses to take home. In fact, the only downside to the place was that it closed during that early afternoon siesta period, and as this was a Sunday, it didn’t open again afterwards, so there was only a short window in which to enjoy the beers before we had to leave.

On the way back to the waterfront area of Santa Cruz de Tenerife we passed a large bronze sculpture of a mask, reminiscent of the comedy and tragedy masks of theatre and appropriately so as it was situated outside Teatro Guimerá. The sculpture is called Per Adriano and was created in 1993 by Igor Mitoraj.

The next post in this transatlantic cruise travelogue series will conclude our time on the island with a walk back to the ship and sail way from Tenerife to begin the eight-day Atlantic crossing part of this trip.

It wouldn’t be a post by me if I didn’t slip some politics in it. Yeah, I’m never going to forgive that lot of braindead racists as long as I live.

Anyway, that proximity to the port was a factor in deciding to apply for tickets to the 2026 community open day being held at Portsmouth International Port this weekend just gone (June 13th for people from the future). To be fair, it was only a small factor, as we’d likely have gone anyway. We like being by the sea, we like pretty much anything to do with the sea (not everything; see later in this post for that), and we’ve kept this little bit of information under our hats for a long time but we really enjoy going on cruises so we’ve developed an interest in ships in general. It’s true. Don’t tell anyone. The tickets were free but limited in number, and the event did sell out, so if this is something that happens again and it seems like something you’d like to visit then do apply as soon as you can.

There was a lot of noise coming from the port area as we approached and this turned out to be because there was some kind of protest going on by under a dozen people. I’m sure that whatever they were protesting about was important to them but protests that are against organisations but which impact the general public are self-defeating in my eyes. Any sympathy for the cause is eclipsed by a general sense that for these sorts of protestors it’s more about being the centre of attention and getting off on emotional reactions from strangers as opposed to doing anything actually productive about whatever it is they do or don’t like. Kinky, yes, but also irritating.

We had our tickets checked, the camera bag glanced in, then proceeded upstairs in the terminal to have ID checked for visitor stickers, and were then ushered past a second security checkpoint while others were directed through it for more thorough bag-checking, presumably because we clearly had nothing large enough on us to worry about.

We proceeded down and out where there was more noise, but this time more welcome too, provided by the rhythmic drumming of Batala Portsmouth. We’ve seen them a few times before at Pride events and they had been due to perform the week before but Portsmouth Pride had to be cancelled due to the terrible weather on the day. No chance of that in the port as we had glorious sunshine.

Most of the people who’d already arrived for the open day in the port were either watching and listening to the drummers or queued up at a small stall set up by Ambassador Cruise Line. Ambassador had erected a spin-to-win wheel with prizes of branded tote bags, sunglasses, and hats on offer, and this proved very popular. We’d end up seeing a sizeable percentage of people happily carrying their purple bags around during the day. We decided to skip the queue to start with and see what else was going on.

We very briefly had a look around a Wightlink catamaran ferry, although there wasn’t a whole lot to see, and we’ve been on these vessels – or similar ones – plenty of times. There was a chance to nose around the bridge on it but it was packed with a few families so we popped our heads in, shot a few photos from the upper deck, and left.

Far more interesting was the bunkering vessel, Whitstar. Anyone can get on a ferry, but who gets to explore a bunkering ship? It was fascinating to actually wander around the gangway between the labyrinth of pipes used to transport fuel and fill ships up when they’re in port. We’ve been on enough cruises to see this happen – open decks are closed off during the operation but balconies provide a great view of the activity – and seeing where it all occurs from a different angle was something we’d not expected.

On our way towards the aft of the bunkering vessel we were treated to a water salute by a tug boat. It wasn’t just using its fire-fighting water cannons to show off as it was also performing doughnuts in the harbour. Different. If you use Instagram and if you have the wherewithal to find the link to our Instagram page (it’ll be on this page somewhere unless you’re visiting in the After Times when I’ve deleted it in a fit of rage) then there’s video of the tug boat performing doughnuts and giving a water salute amongst our reels.

I believe the flags were out because it was the King’s official birthday.

We had a nose around the bridge of Whitstar and I kept a careful eye on my wife as she finds knobs and switches and buttons irresistible, and has a tendency to twist, flick, and press them if she thinks she can get away with it. She behaved herself.

We got off the bunkering vessel just in time for the harbour tour boat to return to dock. During the community open day, boat tours were running every 45 minutes, lasting about half an hour, costing £5 for adults but free for children. We’ve lived in Portsmouth all our lives and never done one of these things even though we have cruised through the harbour a few times and seen many of the sights of the naval dockyard and surrounding area before. There are details on some of the warships in these two previous posts covering a sail into Portsmouth Harbour on CMV Astoria and a sail out of Portsmouth on Scarlet Lady so I won’t repeat any of that information here.

Our Portsmouth Harbour boat tour coincided with the arrival of Brittany Ferries’ Mont St Michel arriving. She would chase us back to the port. We often take a look at the ferries as cheap breaks to France or Spain, and the base price is good, but the necessary extras mount up and we end up realising we could cruise for less and get so much more.

We were happy to see some work by local street artist legend, My Dog Sighs, decorating a cargo container, and happier that there weren’t people standing in front of it so I could actually take some photos. A lot of kids had been pushed up against the artwork by parents in search of a picture of their sprogs as we’d been heading towards the boarding area for the harbour tour.

There were trucks and other vehicles used in and around the port for logistics reasons all set up so that people could clamber aboard or ask questions about them. We left that sort of thing for the families.

Our last bit of exploration around the port was aboard Challenger 5, a yacht operated by the Tall Ships Youth Trust. The yacht was only officially named and launched by Princess Anne a week earlier. My wife stayed up top and chatted with some of the people up there who were tucking into ice creams to combat the warmth of the day, but I ventured inside for a nose around. We like ships and we like most things about the sea, as I’ve already mentioned, but yachts are not for us. A lot of hard work unless you’re a fan of just drifting coupled with cramped spaces and zero privacy doesn’t equate to our idea of fun. Each to their own, and all that.

On our way out of the port we saw that the queue for the Ambassador Cruise Line prize wheel was far shorter now so we lined up and gave it a spin each. We came away with two tote bags and had a little chat with the woman there, trying to see if there was any chance that Ambience would ever sail out of Portsmouth. No idea, sadly, and it’s a shame as she’s a lovely ship that we can’t wait to get back on. We’re going to have to wait until late 2028, though. However, we will be cruising out of our home port next year on Ambition.

We left the community open day at Portsmouth Port through the terminal, passing by and nosing at a number of indoor exhibits set up for the day: maritime careers; ocean clean-ups; that sort of thing.

Having gorgeous weather helped, of course, but it was fascinating regardless to get down to the port, out onto areas usually out of bounds, and explore aboard a number of different vessels. A lovely time was had by all.

We’re not hugely into plants, or at least not to that extent that we make a point to identify them or notice particular species for any particular reason, but we do like visiting botanical gardens when we’re travelling. If nothing else then they usually provide the opportunity for nice photos of flowers or trees but in the Palmetum’s case there’s also the views from the location to add to the mix. Ultimately, this is a place we could recommend visiting if you’re in Tenerife for a number of reasons: fresh air, exercise, views out over the sea and back to the island, and more palms than you can shake a stick at.

Palmetum’s history can be briefly summarised as a landfill site until 1983, then early formation of the gardens from 1995 until 2000 when funding ran out, general maintenance thereafter, then additional work in phases from 2007 onwards with the first guided tours starting in 2013, and finally general admission for visitors appearing sometime after its official inauguration a year later. The botanical gardens host plants organised in broad geographical groupings with many of the species on endangered lists or categorised as extinct in the wild.

We entered, paid, used the toilets, and set off into the Palmetum. Initially, this required us following a climbing, twisting path on the landward side of the hill.

From this point we could see the Refinería de Santa Cruz de Tenerife which, even if you don’t like the look of industrial buildings and machinery and how they contrast with their environments (and I do, for my sins), is interesting simply in that it dates to 1930 and it was the very first refinery to be built in Spain. It actually closed down in 2015 and is due to be dismantled at some point with the land then to be split between public and commercial uses so this little bit of industrial history may not be around for much longer.

Signs had indicated a variety of birdlife that could be spotted but we saw very little of any animal life other than a few butterflies, some lizards, and some ducks and dragonflies drawn to the ponds around the top of the hill.

Some of the plants in the botanical gardens were more susceptible to the environment than others and were protected under a recessed, shaded area in the centre of the green space known as The Octagon.

Another lovely view from the Palmetum was back along the Santa Cruz de Tenerife shoreline towards the port with the impressive architecture of the auditorium in the middle ground. We could also spot the aft of Caribbean Princess from this vantage point showing just how far we’d walked.

In the next post in this transatlantic cruise travelogue series we conclude our time ashore on Tenerife with a visit to the Carnival Museum and a stop for some craft beers. No surprise there.

We awoke in the morning already docked and stepped out onto the balcony to a wonderfully clear sky and a heat that was building already.

After breakfast and the gathering of camera equipment, water, and sun cream for the day, we headed off the ship and immediately started moving roughly south from where Caribbean Princess was docked. Of course, you can’t get far from a cruise ship in a port before running into the ship photographers but that’s where having my own camera comes in handy as I always try to take pictures of them instead of having them take pictures of us. We don’t like having our photos taken and we’re never going to buy any so we’re saving everyone time and effort there, plus I’d like to think that it gives the photographers a bit of a break. Or a taste of their own medicine. You choose.

The visit of Caribbean Princess to Santa Cruz de Tenerife coincided with an 8K, a 21K, and a marathon taking place which meant a lot of barriers up and a lot of crazy people in running gear. The barriers and activities didn’t affect those of us on foot and it was nice to see so many people out and about even if it’s not something that I or my wife would ever do. It’s not because we wouldn’t want to but that both of us have histories of injuries. But it’s also because we wouldn’t want to.

As this cruise was taking place fairly late in the year it wasn’t a complete surprise to see a Christmas Tree up, although that name is a bit misleading. A Christmas Cone would be more accurate. Clearly, it’s better for the trees if they’re not chopped down, transported to an environment they really won’t thrive in, decorated, then left to die, but it’s still not right to call a cone a tree. Somebody has to say it.

Anyone who knows me – and very few people know me – will know that I do like architecture and history even if I’m not remotely close to being an expert in either subject. Whenever you’re travelling you’re bound to encounter things that incorporate one or both of those elements, though, and sometimes they can surprise you. Take the Monument to the Fallen below (the cross-shaped structure). The name and design might simply suggest that it’s to honour the dead, and that’s true to a point, but it’s a problematic piece because the dead it’s honouring are the fascists who died in support of Franco in the Spanish Civil War and its construction made use of forced labour by political prisoners.

The Insular Palace is the home of Tenerife’s governing body. The building was completed in 1940 and is Monumentalist, typical of the works preferred by fascists. Big and imposing for no good reason? That’s what the fascists love. Looking to build a giant ballroom when you clearly can’t dance? You’re probably a fascist. Thinking that a giant arch in your country is needed that’s bigger than everyone else’s arch even though it serves no purpose and you just want your name on it? You’re probably a fascist. You’re definitely pathetic. Oh, I appear to have veered off into topics of current political events for some reason. Anyway, the palace is notable for its clock tower and, apparently, the stocking it puts over its head when it’s about to head off somewhere and rob a bank.

If I know you half as well as I think I do then I know that whenever you see a church you ask yourself “How many naves does that thing have then?” The sixteenth century Church of the Immaculate Conception has five naves, you’ll be pleased to learn. The tower was an eighteenth century addition.

The first thing we properly wanted to see up close was the massive monument to Razer from Robot Wars. Wait, I’ve just checked, and it turns out that this is in fact the Auditorio de Tenerife. Regardless, it’s a lovely-looking piece of architecture that’s hard to miss along the waterfront area of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

The auditorium was completed in 2003 and inaugurated that same year in the presence of Prince Felipe, who at this time is now King of Spain. At night the building is lit up in white (although other colours can be used for special occasions) and we’d seen it illuminated in the darkness as we departed Tenerife on our first visit to the island.

The auditorium offers guided tours, although we didn’t know that at the time, so it’s something we might do on our next visit.

Right next to the auditorium was the Castle of John the Baptist. Castle is pushing it a bit. It’s really a fort. While the defensive structure was originally built in the seventeenth century what we saw now was the mid-eighteenth century rebuild with squat, circular tower.

Historically, there’s a connection between this castle and ourselves, though, and that’s the Portsmouth connection with Lord Nelson. The castle was one of the defensive locations that helped the Spanish inflict a crushing defeat on an overconfident Nelson and his fleet in 1797 and it was the battle in which Nelson lost his arm. Some of the combat details of the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife are interesting enough but it’s the aftermath that’s most fascinating to me, where the defending commander, Lieutenant General Antonio Gutiérrez (who had previously defeated the British in battle twice and had out-thought Nelson in this fight too), agreed honourable terms for a truce so the British could return to their ships with the promise not to attack again, and even loaned two schooners to the British to assist in their return to England. Nelson subsequently sent Gutiérrez beer and cheese along with a letter of thanks, and Gutierrez replied with Spanish cheese and wine. Can you imagine that sort of thing happening these days?

We continued to head roughly southwards as we now had an actual place in mind to visit.

The attractive water park area and wind sculpture we passed by were designed by the architect César Manrique.

However, it wasn’t the water park we were interested in seeing, but rather a botanical garden stretching across that hill just behind it in the photograph above. In the next post in this transatlantic cruise travelogue series we’ll pay a visit to the Palmetum at Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

Getting away from the desk back in 2010 typically involved going for a walk in the countryside around near where I worked, Chilgrove in West Sussex. As a break from coding in a dingy office building, it was a good one, when the weather was good. Fresh air, the occasional bang of someone shooting at a pheasant, and the chance to take photographs of a typically English countryside landscape.

While we’d had excursion plans ahead of the very first time we were supposed to visit Madeira, for this occasion we’d decided we’d just walk around Funchal and take the cable car to the hills around it. Rain had affected but not completely thwarted that plan but the weather improved over the rest of the day and we’d enjoyed the artwork on the doors of Rua de Santa Maria as well as visiting the cathedral and having some drinks along the waterfront. At the time of writing this we do have further plans to return to Madeira where a broadly similar day is planned as we’ll be travelling with my in-laws who really want to ride the cable car and hunt down a specific brand of Madeiran wine they like.

We returned to Caribbean Princess and with this being a Princess Cruises ship and us having a balcony we made use of our Ocean Medallions and ordered a snack and drinks to the room so we could sit out, enjoy the last of the sun before sailaway, then enjoy the views of the sailaway itself. We do like that you can order a limited range of food and drink items to your room – even if the range appears to be shrinking year-by-year – but ordering hot food is generally ill-advised as by the time it’s been plated up, sat on some side waiting for a member of staff to be summoned for it, then delivered to your room via all the back entrances and stairwells connecting the ship, lukewarm is about the best you can hope for. You can have convenience or you can have excellence, but you can’t have both.

We’d noticed what appeared to be a school sailing lesson taking place with lots of small yachts just outside the harbour entrance and it was interesting to then see motorised dinghies shepherding them all further out to sea just as Caribbean Princess was untied from the dock and given the okay to sail away from Funchal.

In addition to some adults in high visibility vests who may have been port officials or teachers wanting to see us off and waving happily (everyone waves to and from ships; that’s just the way it is), we also spotted what were clearly immigration officers walking along the breakwater and keeping an eye on the cruise ship and the water around, presumably just to make sure nobody decided they couldn’t bear to leave the hilly, rainy island behind.

So that was our day in Madeira done. As I’ve mentioned, all things being well we should be back in late 2026, this time aboard P&O Ventura.

The evening meal was apparently the “Chef’s Dinner” on board Caribbean Princess. We both opted for the same starter and I’ll leave you to work out what else we chose using your amazing deductive powers and the following pieces of photographic evidence.

We’ve got just one more port of call to make ahead of the Atlantic crossing part of this transatlantic cruise and in the next post in this series we’ll arrive at Santa Cruz de Tenerife and go for a walk to the Auditorio de Tenerife and Castle of St John the Baptist.

We started by passing over a couple of watercourses that run from the ravines higher up in the mountain areas around Funchal down to the Atlantic Ocean.

Chafariz Square had that black and white tiled surface that Portugal seems to love. The obelisk structure may have been part of a fountain, but whether it worked we couldn’t tell for sure. There was a fountain erected here in 1827, apparently, and this may actually have been it. That’ll teach us for not getting closer to take a look.

It was hard to miss the church tower so we headed there next. While neither large nor particularly impressive from the outside this was actually Funchal Cathedral, completed in 1514 and largely unchanged since building was completed.

Generally Gothic architecturally, and obviously Catholic, it was impossible not to miss some Islamic elements with some of the interior arches and the roof in particular sporting geometric art typical of the Mudéjar.

Leaving the cathedral we headed towards the sea, passing a couple of interesting sights along the way.

The sculpture of Józef Pilsudski was erected in 1999. Madeira has a large contingent of Polish expatriates and the Polish pope, Pope John Paul II, is the only pope to have visited the island. Pilsudski is considered a hero in Poland and founder of the Second Polish Republic, and in late 1931 he stayed on Madeira for three months. During this time a young boy who would become Pope John Paul II wrote a letter to Pilsudski as part of a school writing exercise expressing a wish to also visit the island.

A very short distance further on were two very modern items in the form of a fancy fountain, part of the parliamentary library, and a cylindrical sculpture to honour the health workers during the COVID pandemic period.

I liked the colours and the style of the Madeira lettering that tourists do like to photograph – I’m a tourist and I did – but it’s a shame that the backdrop to it was so busy and that there were railings in front of it.

Along the waterfront just in front of the Madeira sign there was a pleasant public space – the Praça do Povo (People’s Square) – comprising a few parkland areas and some tiered spots where I imagine lovely views of the sea and sun could be had on perhaps less overcast days. Commemorating a brief stopover on the island in 1906 during a trip from London to South Africa there was a bust of Gandhi on display and we also encountered a monument to Nelson Mandela. Closer to the main road there was a monument to Madeiran emigrants.

The place we’d been heading towards was BeerHouse, a microbrewery which had lovely views out over the marina and towards the cruise ships docked in the port, plus, of course, beer. They also did food but we were only really there for the craft ales and ended up staying for three each. In truth, the ales weren’t quite to our taste and you can’t say we didn’t try to find something we really liked, but we always appreciate local breweries and we’re glad we went. With it being on the way back to the ship it’s highly likely we’d stop there again on a repeat visit to Madeira.

All that remained of our day in Funchal was to then take a slow stroll back to the ship.

An artist whose work you’ll quite likely have seen if you’ve spent any time in Lisbon (and we have) is Bordalo II. His colourful trash animals have an unmistakeable style and it was a nice surprise to come across a piece of his on Funchal highlighting ocean pollution.

I took advantage of drier weather to take more photos of the harbour murals we’d noticed (well, it would be hard to miss them) when we’d disembarked the ship earlier in the day.

In the next post in this transatlantic cruise series we sail away from Madeira and towards the final port of call before our relaxing week crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

One response to the effects on Funchal was the launching of “The Art of Open Doors“, a project aimed at bringing colourful artwork and the necessary footfall to see it to part of the old town that people would otherwise have avoided due to its rundown state. While it’s not exclusively along Rua de Santa Maria in the old town, that is where you’ll find most of the more-than-two-hundred pieces of artwork today. Come for the pretty pictures, stay to make purchases at the stalls and shops along the narrow, cobbled streets.

There’s not much more to say other than to now show off a small sample of the doors adorned with street art in Rua de Santa Maria from our visit there in 2024. Street art is something we enjoy looking at wherever we travel in the world and when there’s a history attached to pieces it’s even more important to hunt it down and check it out.

In the next post we’ll do a little wandering to see some sights of Funchal (now that it had stopped raining), including a pit stop for some craft ales (well, it’s what we do).

We were therefore very pleased to make the port and capital of Funchal on Madeira for this second attempt at cruising to it, although the weather forecast was not great. We actually woke to rain which had thankfully, seemingly, passed by the time we’d had breakfast and gathered our wandering equipment for the day, so the city had a damp sheen to reflect the brightness of the day as we stepped ashore.

You may already know that when a ship first visits a port it’s traditional for there to be a small ceremony where a plaque (or similar) is given by the port to the ship so that the ship can display it aboard. If you ever cruise on a vessel that’s travelled widely then it’s fun sometimes to find these plaques, see where the ship’s been, see if you’ve been there too, and get a feel for the ports based on the quality or size of the plaques. There’s a lot of variation there.

Funchal has its own tradition in a similar but somewhat reversed vein (possibly unique, or at least we’ve not seen it done elsewhere), which you’ll see most clearly if you walk into the city rather than take a shuttle bus. Along the harbour wall murals have been painted over the years acknowledging the visit of certain ships with vessels from merchant and naval fleets, ferry lines, and cruise ships all represented. Interesting to do some ship-name-spotting as you stroll along the waterfront.

A short, narrow tunnel links the port area to the city, passing through part of the old defensive walls.

We’d not long got out of the port area and started on our way to where we wanted to hit first when it started to rain, and for a brief period we thought “Ah, a little bit of rain never hurt anyone,” conveniently forgetting the lesson from a few days earlier regarding just how much rain can actually fall when it wants to (see: Two Mediterranean Sea Days Aboard Caribbean Princess). And so the rain retaliated by coming down harder. A lot harder. We were forced to seek shelter by pretending to peruse souvenir shops until it became too obvious we had no intention of buying anything, then hovering outside under an awning.

We had a partial view not only of our ship, Caribbean Princess, but also of Explora I which was docked behind us. Explora I looks a lovely ship, but with a daily cost per person rocking in at around six times what we paid for our transatlantic cruise then, short of a lottery win (and maybe not even then), it’s not a cruise experience we’re likely to ever have.

The rain eased off but never quite let up entirely so I kept my camera in its bag as we eventually decided to continue the walk to the only place we had firm plans on visiting this day. That was the cable car station and it took us probably 10-15 minutes to get there. Buying a ticket was simple enough, thanks to the pay machines in the lobby. Then we tried to hover around so it was empty enough to just get a cable car up above Funchal on our own to make taking photos or video easier but ended up sharing with a German tourist with whom we chatted mostly instead. We tried to peer about and down through the glass that was fogged up inside and covered in rain droplets outside but there was little point in taking photographs. One thing of minor interest as we were drifting slowly up and over the hills surrounding Funchal was that there was clearly some sort of car rally taking place on the island on the day of our visit. A procession of colourful and decorative vehicles with incredibly loud exhausts was snaking its way up the twisting roads we were passing over.

We alighted at the Monte station, and the rain, while not heavy, alighted with us, adding continuing dampness to the morning’s activities. Walking a little way east of the cable car station we approached a viewpoint over the valley below and were afforded some views back down to the main port area of Funchal where our ship could easily be spotted. The small church we passed was the Babosas Chapel, only rebuilt in 2022 following destruction in the island’s serious storm of 2010. It had been originally constructed in 1906 and the Art Nouveau style of the period is clear to see in its architecture.

About a minute’s walk to the west of the cable car station there was a pleasant-looking garden area. This was Jardim Monte Palace Madeira, a botanical garden, and even with the rain we might have been tempted to pay it a visit had it not also been clearly over many vertical levels on the steep hillside here. Rain and slopes or steps together, though, suggested we’d not see it in its best light. We do have plans to return to Madeira in November 2026 and we’ve already agreed with people with whom we’ll be travelling that we’ll do the cable car again (as they’ve never done it) so if the weather is kind to us we’ll visit on that occasion.

We didn’t spend long at the top of the hill over Funchal before deciding to head back down. We’ve had the experience of a cable car ride on Madeira now, and we have an outline of a plan for a return visit. Our trip back down to the port area was unaccompanied by strangers this time so it was easier to move around the car and take photos, even if reflections were an issue. On the plus side, the rain seemed to have eased off fully by the time we reached a lower altitude.

We reached the bottom and disembarked to the sight of a mad sculpture and madder people exercising outside. Crazy! There are no walls! People can see you! Oh, that’s what you want, isn’t it? Healthy, egocentric perverts, the lot of you.

A couple of historical boats of local significance were also on display within glass-walled enclosures. Mosquito was a steam-powered boat (later converted to diesel), built in 1900 in England, and used in and around Funchal to service ships and the dock area on behalf of Blandy, a well-known wine merchant in the city. Aquila was a tender for flying boats visiting Funchal from 1949 onwards, but earlier, during the war, it had been used to train Royal Air Force pilots and perform coastal patrols.

With the rain looking like it had left the low-lying parts of Funchal for the mountainous heights now and us not needing any immediate shelter we made for the historical centre of the city where we expected to find an abundance of street art.

In the next post in this series we’ll enjoy the vibrant public street art project that is the Art of Open Doors in Funchal.