In subtropical climate with a humid and partly rainy North Atlantic it´s no wonder that the island is lush and beautiful. It´s not an island with beaches but with beautiful mountain walks and a wild sea.

The island was discovered by the Portuguese 1419 and inhabited ever since. The capital,Funchal, has nice architecture,many lush beautiful parks and in the old town,loads of nice small restaurants. One speciality is Lapas which is basically well made big barnacles and the fruitmarkets are well worth a visit. Don´t buy anything though since prices are insane mainly for tourists who come on a short visit from passing cruise ships (we did the mistake to buy 3 fruits for 32Euros !)

In port are all paintings from passing cruisers en route to the Canaries and further to cross the Atlantic. We were looking for the painting of good old Nemrod,but it looks like time took it´s toll since it wasn´t found.