Photos of and from the lovely clifftop Parque de Santa Catarina, with at the end some photos of the house of the governor of the Autonomous Region of Madeira, which I believe is called the Quinta Vigia. This manor house began life in the 17th century as the center of a sugar planation worked by, you guessed it, slaves violently ripped from their villages in nearby western Africa. Please let’s not fall prey to denying or prettyfying the evils of the past, even as we appreciate beauty in the present…
I’ve shown you one image from this far-western edge of the island in a prior post, but this time we’ll show you the lighhouse and the spectacular, vertiginously steep, and remarkably lonely coastal views on both sides: because the lighthouse is a few kilometers downhill from the already-remote and small village of Ponta do Pargo, it’s impossible to avoid the clear sense that the ocean really does stretch for thousands of kilometers to the west before one will see any inhabited land again. My holiday wish for us all is that we may enjoy quality time with loved ones, and may some form of light always guide our steps at this end of year holiday season. Merry Christmas 😊
Funchal really does Christmas lights in a big, big way. Notice the lighter blue lights in the peaked roofs on this waterfront cafe, just above? Those are volcanoes erupting, and though I tried, I couldn’t get the video to upload well nor did it really show the eruptions well enough to bother… Last holiday-lights show from Funchal here, and then some from Amsterdam next, which as you may recall from many posts last year does its own winter lights quite nicely :-).
Swirling low-hanging clouds e.g. mist at Boca de Encumeada, the pass and peak at the top of the giant valley which cuts north to south, from which you’ve seen many photos in various past posts :-).
Sunset looking both at (above) and from (below) Funchal’s Forte de São Tiago, which I called “the older fort” in a prior post. The “newer” fort will feature in a future post.
Birds of Paradise were blooming beautifully just about everywhere we went on Madeira – in fact the guidebooks say that December is their month on the island 🙂
Both from Monte, uphill from the Gardens, and definitely officially part of the city of Funchal, so however rural these may look, they’re urban, gosh darn it 🙂
I’ve shown you one image from this far-western edge of the island in a prior post, but this time we’ll show you the lighhouse and the spectacular, vertiginously steep, and remarkably lonely coastal views on both sides: because the lighthouse is a few kilometers downhill from the already-remote and small village of Ponta do Pargo, it’s impossible to avoid the clear sense that the ocean really does stretch for thousands of kilometers to the west before one will see any inhabited land again. My holiday wish for us all is that we may enjoy quality time with loved ones, and may some form of light always guide our steps at this end of year holiday season. Merry Christmas 😊
(so much world, so little time....) 