Railway Excursion

I can hear you already. "Any fule kno that there are no trains on Madeira." And you are absolutely right. There was a metre gauge rack railway that operated on the Riggenbach system between the 1890s and 1943 but that was all.

Idle perusing of the Horarios do Funchal (Funchal Corporation Buses) app in English reveals that there is a bus to Railway.  How to sell this to R? Turns out to be no problem. The BBC promises rain this morning and for once it is right. She is more than happy to stay at base sketching while D dons the rain jacket and braves the weather. The rain isn't exactly torrential, more like a steady drizzle. By the time D has strolled down the hill to  the Marina bus stops the rain has almost stopped.
D's Portuguese is limited but Caminho Ferro is a no-brainer. The bus departs promptly and is not encumbered by any other tourists. The route takes us along the promenade and then up one of the main routes out to the north of the city. Suddenly we take an improbable right turn off the main drag, followed by a tight left turn onto a straight road that climbed relentlously up the mountain. This road is the abandoned route of the aforementioned rack railway.

The bus drags itself painfully up the incline, stopping about every 50 metres. Eventually, for no obvious reason, the bus gives up. We are only about halfway up the old railway and there is no obvious reason for a bus route to terminate here. Even worse it is raining. Luckily there is a handy cafe which provides good coffee as well as having a couple of very fuzzy photos of the railway.
Having frittered away €1.15 on the ride up D resolves to take an economical walk home. In the main the gradients are not too bad and 3km later gets D home for lunch. The rain has stopped. After a traditional lunch of Sandes Misto (cheese and ham in bread rolls) we stride out to visit the Quinta Vigia. This is the Regional President's garden. 
One of the trees in the garden reminds us very much of the Himalayan Cotton Trees that we have seen in India. Bright red flowers and no foliage. 
The one downer of the President's garden is the restrictive cages that they house birds in. The rose ringed parakeets seem to be particularly pissed off about it. From the gardens we get a good view of the Cunarder, Queen Elizabeth in the port.


Comments

  1. Dave W4 February 2022 at 09:15

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. knownunknown4 February 2022 at 22:02

    Did you bump into daytrippers from QE ? They flood the narrow streets of most destination ports..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dave W5 February 2022 at 06:03

      The town didn't seem any busier. There have been a couple of cruise ships in Funchal harbour most nights that we have been here.

      Delete
  3. Unknown5 February 2022 at 01:43

    At last the 'Sniff' of a railway albeit historic. Can I presume that Mr Beeching's dad visited the island?

    ReplyDelete

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