Today we were in Madeira, Portugal. I have to say, it was a comfort hearing Portuguese again BUT I was assigned to the tour that was completely in Portuguese.
Luckily, my lady was nice enough to let me know times and meeting places so I could go off and explore on my own. Stephany wasn’t as lucky with her guide, who made her stay by her side the entire time so she missed a lot. I guess I missed all the historical facts because I didn’t understand the language but I still had an awesome tour of the city.
Madeira is a gorgeous port. There are thousands of little houses that cover the mountains and my tour began with a drive up to the top. One of the highlights they offer tourists is a basket ride down the streets to the bottom, but since I had done that the first time we were here, I signed up for another tour.
We climbed higher and higher and Vision started to shrink away in the distance. At the top, we stopped in a little square to buy souvenirs and look around. Then we walked up the hill to the church that was decorated with gorgeous chandeliers and paintings. From there, we continued down the road to the cable car system.
Here, we boarded a car and rode over the city, peering down into the lush forest and waterfalls. At the bottom, we exited the cable car area and went to the Botanical Gardens. This was probably my favorite part of the tour. There were so many gorgeous flowers and interesting plants. I definitely went picture crazy. It was nice being the tour guide because I was able to walk in the back and since one of the guests was as hungry for pictures as I was, we were always together bringing up the rear.
After the gardens, we drove a short ways into the town where we were able to go into a gorgeous embroidery shop and taste wine in the basement. We had an hour at this stop so I was also able to walk across the street and tour the food market. I returned to the shop to wait for my bus and the guests. I felt very important when a German couple (so adorable with their Madeira pocket guide book) asked where they could find the market. That’s right, I DO speak English!!!! YES!!! I could help somebody! LOL.
From the shop, the guests were either allowed to ride back to the ship or walk to another church where a large flower festival was taking place. My guide told me they lay out a carpet of flowers along the streets. That would have been awesome to see, but since I still had no euros, I didn’t know how I would be able to get back to the ship. Besides, I had already seen so many beautiful flowers that I felt I had soaked it all up.
We were supposed to have Boogie tonight, but there was something wrong with the hydro’s on the stage. (I’m not really sure how that effects us since the hydro’s are under the set and we don’t use them in this show but hey, another night off!) My suspicion is they either cancelled because there are predicted monster waves for tonight and the next nights following, maybe even to the end of my contract.
Or it could be that the guest entertainers that were supposed to perform tomorrow didn’t make it on because of the flight cancellations from the volcano smoke. Whatever the reason, we are scheduled to perform Boogie on the last day of the cruise.
Tomorrow is another sea day as we make our way to Seville, Spain and than Lisbon as our last port. Nicco and I signed up for more exciting tours so I will hopefully be able to do them all! More to come in the days that follow, LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!
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