View from cable car

Went into Funchal today on the shuttle bus from the site. It was 4 euros and we didn’t get a return as we could get the local bus back! The shuttle dropped us off at the beginning of the promenade and we then walked eastwards along the promenade towards the old town, passing three huge cruise liners! There were a large number of people pressing us to let them take us wherever we wanted to go and we investigated the trips out to whale watch!

The queues for the cable car were quite long so we continued straight past and walked up around the front! So many small cafes and restaurants and nowhere to find a loo! We were looking for an embroidery museum that a friend had told me about but nobody seemed to know where it was! We eventually found it but it was closed!! We did find the market building and saw some lovely bags and tiles and were press ganged into trying various dried fruits and fresh fruits none of which we bought! I did buy two lemons as I like to drink lemon juice first thing in the morning!

We bought a couple of ham and cheese rolls and I bought a cappuccino and two pasteis de nata which we consumed along with half of one of the rolls! Then we went to the cable car and bought a ticket to go to Monte return, not realising that we had to get tickets and entrance for another cable car and the Jardim Botanico! Not the best time of year to go but there were a few highlights not least the lake which was very still when we arrived but then someone threw fish food in and a huge shoal of gold and black fish suddenly appeared! I had just said that there did not appear to be any fish. Wrong g, so wrong!

The bus back was at 4.10 so we did not stay very long but we made it back down in time to but carte dor icecreams. We were fortunate enough to catch an earlier bus which was late!!! I thought that we were at the end of the line and the bus would turn there not realising that some buses just carry on! We therefore did not get out at the right stop! We sailed past and were taken a long way down the other side of the mountain. We were dropped at the first stop and had to walk all the way back up! An impressive 18,000 steps for the whole day!

This picture is taken inside the bubble and appears to be superimposed but it was just reflections in the glass n.