Fruity

Awake a bit before daylight but we were in bed early so had some much needed sleep. The sun came up to another glorious day.

A bit of drama at breakfast, pigeons were making a nuisance of themselves and in very short order a man arrived with a hawk on his arm. ( He comes every day apparently).
It soon saw them off! 
There is a very tall date palm? * at the gate to our garden and the biggest Frangipani tree I’ve seen which is providing our terrace with much needed (for me) shade.
Subsequently we’ve spent the whole day in Funchal just doing as we pleased. First crossed the little bridge to our second pool -  extra, a wonderful sparkle in the water today.
From the bridge last night we could see the huge Aida ship lit up like a Christmas tree. It was gone this morning.
We walked down to the harbour for a coffee at the Design Centre. There were two smaller ships in harbour today, one was the Hanseatic Spirit, a small expedition ship and the other was from the  Ritz Carlton Yacht Collection - much more me darling!

We walked right along the Avenida do Mar where there is construction work going on for a new concert venue and there also appears to be some work taking place on the edge of the Marina. Not much of a queue for the cable car compared with when we arrived yesterday I imagine that bears a relation to the numbers and size of ships in port.

We walked right along to the Fort de Sao Tiago and popped into the nearby Porto Santa Maria hotel for a drink, a place someone we met two years ago recommended to us.

From there it was back through the old town with its interesting painted doors, restaurants and shops. Managed to get my bit of required shopping out of the way in one of them.

Of course we couldn't miss the market and these amazing fruit stalls show just why it’s always worth a look. We were too late for the fish market they were all packed up but that is equally worth seeing especially for the black Espada (Scabbard) fish and huge chunks of fresh tuna on sale. There are still some ladies, flower sellers, who wear the traditional Madeiran dress here too.
We were tempted by a bakery inside and had tea, which came in little cast iron teapots, accompanied by something called God’s bread which was on the lines of a doughnut with a creamy coconut topping

Called into the Cathedral in the town centre for a brief moments  stillness  and then went for a tasting  at Blandy’s wine lodge. Ordered a couple of bottles of Sercial to be collected at the airport.

So a very enjoyable day with many things ticked off our list and lots of stops for refreshments! What more could you want in such lovely weather!

By the way I don’t know what half of the fruits seen here are but some people were trying them.

* TML here and there tells me it’s a papaya