MADEIRA DAY FIVE

Sun. 8th July

Day trip west of Madeira
Trip with Strawberry World on a larger bus today - they didn't dare put me on the same minibus! Travel to Sao Sebastian, then to the highest cliffs in Europe at Cabo Girao (is this really Europe geographically?) I remember AF's description when she went here. I think she was more acclimatised by then.
Brilliant scenery all the way today. I am so charmed by Madeira. I'd love to come back on a levada walking trip. As yesterday, we go up through cloud to sunshine above.
Lunch at a fishing village Porto Moniz = grilled pilchards and a sort of creme bruleé.....(echoes of another wonderful Sunday lunch in Portugal with the Gloucester Cathedral folk on our St James de Compostello trip nine years ago. That was a pilgrimage which was just a glorified holiday.) Glass of local wine which goes immediately to the head!!
Porto Moniz is famous for its lava pools on the beach which form convenient swimming pools full of seawater.
I buy a mini drinks-tray with embroidery in it - a small memento. Just as I buy it, I realise I could have bought a piece of embroidery and glassed it over as a tray when I got back - such is hindsight! Lovely as it is, the Madeiran embroidery isn't really 'my sort of thing' in spite of the family connections. They need to create a more updated style. I also bought some lovely handmade linen napkins with a simple leaf motif = perhaps worked by a child? Also bought 'waiter's suits for wine bottles as gifts.
We climb again to a high mountain which is the hub of the hydroelectricity (forty percent of electricity for the island) and water collection for many of the levadas. We are lucky today to find this upland plateau free of cloud. Usually it is just fog . There are also wind turbines which account for 10per cent of Madeira's electricity. Fossil fuel does the rest - solar heating is still a new idea which I find odd.

On the way up, but not by the water collection area, we see lots of free range cattle which is good. Are they descendants of the poor oxen who pulled the carts of 100 years ago? We also passed through the unique Lauralsilva forests.

I think I must have passed through more places in one time on Madeira, using modern transport and good roads, than every any of the forebears, their relations or indeed AF in 1953. Many of the villages we saw today where until recent times quite remote, originally only accessible by foot.

Back to the hotel for a rest. I continue to read the excellent book on Women and Madeira and learn that 'Rua Joao Tavira' has a house which was once owned by the Phelps family. They must have had several as they grew up and prospered. I set off and find this delightful street still with a few old houses, so I take some pictures no knowing which it might be. Apparently the museum of embroidery doesn't even mention Elizabeth Phelps.......a serious omission.

I then make a quick visit to the 16th Cent Cathedral (da Se) just as evening Mass (7pm by now) was ended. Crowds pouring out - no one looking particularly edified! I make a quick skirt around but soon a was verger rattling his keys in a meaningful way and switching lights off, making it obvious that it is closing time.

No doubt the Phelps family showed visitors this old cathedral but the English of that time, unless RC, would have kept their own society very much and would never darken those doors in the normal course of events. Neither do I think the Phelps were particularly religious in the church sense - they just were people of their time, in the wine business and church going (to the English Church) was part of the normal social round. They were however great philanthropists - following Frances de Brissac's example and introducing embroidery at a time when it was difficult to make ends meet by farming alone.

Dinner = at a pleasant enough pavement cafe, nicely grilled squid and vegetables followed by very fresh pineapple with Madeira wine poured all over it.
Madeira wine = definitely an aperitif or pudding wine - don't let anyone else convince you otherwise.

Another walkabout and back to the hotel.
Very humid again tonight; today I have experienced all kinds of weather.

I find that by shutting the shutters and French doors in my room and putting on the air conditioning - that I sleep very well.