Voyage Day 16 - Thursday 4 December 2025, ashore at Machico and Funchal 
🌤️ Rain overnight, sunny spells, dry and warm all day
Nice Day! Once the morning stuff was done, we went ashore on the ‘shuttle’ from the ship to shore around 0945h. A lot of people were waiting for the bus, local and from our ship. The journey was quick and by the time we arrived there were a lot of passengers standing. We alighted at the harbour side and waked to the tourist information office to be sure of the bus stop for our return journey. We then headed for the old town. Along the way we stopped for coffee and Pastel de Nata - delicious. We continued our walk to the old town, chose a bakery for lunch and visited the fruit, vegetable, flower and fish market, sat for a while in the park, returned to the bakery, sat outside to eat our ‘Mafia’ toasties, triple layer, with cheese, tomato, mozzarella, rocket, basil and olive oil. (see gallery) Very nice but very filling. We also had a soft drink and coffee. We then made our way back to the bus stop, snapping pictures all the while as there was a lot of street art to view and appreciate. We caught the bus and got back to Machico in time for an ice cream and the 1600h shuttle back to the ship. Tonight after supper we spent time wrapping our Secret Santa presents for tomorrow’s visit of St Nicolas - it's a long story but there are a lot of enthusiastic Dutch crew on board.