Costa Cruise 2009: Madeira, Portugal

Hi guys!  This is about our stop in Madeira while on our Western Med Cruise the beginning of this month…

Pics of the port:

We walked everywhere that day!  I swear, we must have walked about 7 miles.  These stairs went on forever!  The city was really relaxing and had parks almost every couple blocks, and the sidewalks throughout the city were all patterned with small river stones, set on their edges.

Do you recognize the person on that billboard?  I’ll give you a hint: his initials are GC.  I think it is crazy how many big stars promote products in Europe when they wouldn’t think about doing that in the U.S.

We stopped at a colonial museum on our walk around the city.  There was a historical artifacts collection right outside of it.

Inside, there were tons of old beautiful antiques and absolutely gorgeous chandeliers.  I’m a freak about chandeliers, so I was acting like a crazy lunatic during our tour in the museum.

After the museum, we walked around some more.  These streets were long and steep!!

Then, off to the fort!!

I can totally see why they put the fort here.  You could see for miles!!

Then, we hit up the town square.  Those are some church doors in the pic above.  We were trying to figure out where to go next (below).  The city was getting ready for Christmas. 

We ran across this sculpture:

Next, we decided to take the gondolas up to the top of the mountain on the island.

We found that church up at the top of the mountain.  It was pretty cool, but we were starving, so we headed back down…

We ended up eating in a cute little bistro.  They served the best garlic bread ever.

with avocados, red peppers and shrimp.  It was smothered in a mayo sauce.  We were not fans of the sauce, but everything was so fresh!!

Then, for the grand finale: steak with a fried egg on top.  I guess that is a Portuguese tradition?  I noticed that literally everything had a fried egg on top of it.  It was really good!  The egg yolk just made the steak really rich.

And a side of veggies and fries:

Anything with protein on top of a big slab of meat, Steve likes.  So, he was happy.

We don’t know who we were supposed to be, but we thought it was funny…:)

All the stores were very open with their products.  Quite a difference from the states!!

After walking around forever after lunch looking at all the little shops (and being scared by a few), we stopped for an afternoon snack—Chocolate cake…

with a white coffee.  Basically, this was a misto, but they called a white coffee.  The flavor was nutty and perfect!

Then, we headed back to the boat.  Just some art on the way back.

Back down the stairs.  It was a great day, but we walked so much, and my poor feet hurt from walking around in my flip flops!!

Up next: horseback riding in Malaga, Spain!!

Missed other parts of the cruise?

• Savona/Genoa, Italy
• Barcelona, Spain
• Casablanca, Morocco
• Rabat, Morocco
• Arrecife, Canary Islands
• Tenerife, Canary Islands

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Tagged as: travel