Madeira

We arrived on Madeira last evening, the sun was shining , nice and warm 19c, what a lovely greeting.

 

A couple of shots of the pool complex at the Royal Savoy Resort where we will be spending the next four weeks.

From the top floor you can just

 see the harbour,  two cruise ships in dock today.

The lobby, still with Christmas decorations.

This morning we decided to visit the market in Funchal about a half hour stroll along the harbour front. Walked into the lobby and they are taking down the decorations.

This shot taken from the vegetable part looking down on the fish market. It was after 11am when we arrived, a little late most of the buying and selling  had been done and the fish merchants were starting to tidy away.

The fish above are called Espada and are only found here off Madeira and some of the Japanese Islands, they live about a 1000 metres down in the ocean, the ones on the left are as they come out of the sea, the ones on the right after their black skins are scraped off.

 One of the Market workers taking the black skin off.

More fish, we really must get ourselves together and get down here early to experience this when its really busy.

Back up the stairs to the fruit and veg.  This is exotic fruit, nuts, herbs and dried peppers.

 

The flower section, all these flowers grow on the island, as does all the vegetables and fruit.

They don't get very high temperatures on Madeira, in summer in very rarely goes above the high 20s, at the moment the range is highs of 20/22 lows of 16/18 they grow everything from bananas to sugar cane to potatoes.