Today’s Daily Programme is Here ….
We’d had a huge meal in the Verandah restaurant yesterday, and I was still feeling incredibly full, this wasn’t helped by the fact that I’d missed my alarm and slept right through breakfast. The breakfast bit didn’t really matted as I wasn’t feeling particularly hungry, but I’d missed my morning run, ah well! After a quick shower we headed out to beimn the long trek back into town. We’d decided that we quite fancied eating out, maybe some Piri-Piri down by the Market.
When we arrived in Funchal proper, we headed into the little Parade of shops by the Ritz as there was a stationers there and Jane wanted to get a thank you card for Veronica who had done such a fantastic job of arranging our wedding celebrations. There are a small craft fair in the Municipal Gardens opposite The Ritz, they had lots of interesting stalls but Jane is very conscious that we are going to be bringing back even more than we brought and we don’t have the room. From there we headed towards the Market in a round-about way and saw two of our table mates who were taking advantage of the second day to do a bit of shopping too. They pointed out that the Cathedral across the road had the most extravagant gilded interior so we popped in to have a look. The Igreja de São João Evangelista do Colégio do Funchal was very spectacular.
We headed further towards the Market via Pingu Dolce, Friday lunchtime must be the “big shop” time in Madeira since the supermarket was mobbed with long queues at all of the checkouts. When we arrived at the Market, what we thought may have been a Piri-Piri shop turned out to be a standard cafe so we never bothered getting lunch there instead deciding on heading further towards the cable car where there were some more restaurants. Jane decided on one of the busier ones after I’d dithered in making a choice. Needless to say it was a good one. We had grilled sardines, grilled squid, fries and some garlic bread. Delicious.
We had an “all aboard” time of 15:30 which meant Jane was getting worried that we might miss the ship’s departure if by some possibility my watch was wrong and my phone, and her phone, and her watch, and the clock on the clock tower as it was we made it back in plenty of time, if a little puffed out after a long old trek. I was very disappointed that there is no Cunard artwork on the “Funchal Wall” Anyone that served on an RAF fats jet squadron would be familiar with the Deci (pronounced Detchi) Wall, where visiting Squadrons would adorn the wall with their artwork – YouTube Clip – There were many examples of cruise lines, tall ships, a few military and several private yachts but nothing from Cunard.
Once aboard it was quiz time 16/20 and then heading back to the stateroom to get ready because we needed to explain which photographs we have chosen. After that it was up to the Queens Grill restaurant for dinner. I was looking forward to the King Prawn Thai red curry and Jane was looking forward to her third outing of the lamb rack. Dinner was excellent and as we wrapped up two of our table mates arrived back from eating at the Verandah restaurant very disappointed with their experience, not with the food as apparently that was excellent, it was just the whole premise that as a QG diner you were getting nothing better than you would in QG, but paying a premium to have a worse experience, no amuse bouche, no petit fours