Peep Peep!

This photo may feature baby chicks, but the peeps I'm thinking about come from small frogs, spring peepers.

The racket comes from males trying to attract females (which accounts for much of the racket in the animal world this time of year), and it can grow quite loud along a path I walk that edges a wetland. 

I was glad to hear it yesterday, though. I'd been listening for spring peepers since I arrived home but had missed the distinctive, high-pitched sound. 

Now the little critters have spoken: spring is here to stay. 

Worthwhile

The rain has stopped, the sun has peeked through the clouds, and I have in mind a piece of music I always hum this time of year: "God So Loved the World," by John Stainer.

Not knowing much about the composer I looked him up this morning. He's not as contemporary as I thought. His dates, 1860-1901, mark him as a Victorian through and through.

Though his choral music output was prodigious, nothing much is performed these days except "The Crucifixion," from which this piece emerged as an Easter and Passiontide favorite. 

Give it a listen, if you have time. Maybe you'll agree with me that to be remembered for one piece of music — if it were a piece like this — would make an entire life worthwhile. 

Ir As Compras*

A week ago we were just returning from Portugal. Since then I've been to three local grocery stores, an unusually high number — but necessary given there will be a crowd here on Sunday.

With every shop I visit there is one tugging at my memory. It's Pingo Doce, the Portuguese supermercado chain that was so much fun to visit, it was almost not like grocery shopping at all. 

The first one we found was less than 10 minutes walk from our apartment in Funchal. There we bought milk, eggs, bread and vegetables. Another one, just slightly farther away, had delicious tangerines as well as prepared foods. 

On our second-to-last day in Madeira, we found the largest Pingo of all, in downtown Funchal. It was not unlike a Wegman's in size and scope. I picked up Portuguese Easter treats for the kiddos there.

And finally, we discovered that the chain extended to (probably began in) Lisbon. We never visited the flagship store there, but did dip into a smaller market in Cais do Sodre. As with the others there were self-assured locals doing their weekly shop, confused tourists searching for toothpaste, and harried clerks trying to deal with it all. Life itself, in other words. 

(*"To go shopping" in Portuguese. Above, a Pingo shopper in Funchal, just back from a hike.)

Our Own World Again

I woke before dawn this morning, early enough to see the yard emerge from darkness, early enough to hear the first birds calling. 

Speaking of birds, the day after we arrived home, I spied a male cardinal at the feeder. A common occurrence. But I saw him with new eyes. 

Do they have cardinals in Madeira or mainland Portugal? I saw none. So I imagined seeing a cardinal for the first time, resplendent in his red coat. Gleaming red coat at this time of year. 

Here is a gorgeous bird I take for granted, and I'm seeing him as if for the first time. Isn't that what we hope travel will give us, the ability to see our own world again — only with fresh eyes?

(Turns out, I don't have many good cardinal photos. I need to remedy that.)

Point A to Point B

On Sunday, I walked to a friend's house. This would seem unremarkable unless you knew the narrow hilly road that connects our neighborhoods. There's no shoulder, no margin of error. The road was built long before all the development that's clogged our county. 

Luckily, I had a secret weapon: a path through the woods that goes from my house to my friends'. It takes about 30 minutes, compared with a five-minute drive. But since I'm just back from a world where walking with purpose is far more common than it is here, I was more than willing to do it. 

While I was strolling I was thinking about how natural it seems when you're doing it: walking not just for exercise but because you need to get from Point A to Point B.

I wish I could do more of it.

(Pedestrians in Funchal, Madeira)

Religious Recycling

For years I collected palms from Palm Sunday. I grew up learning that they are a sacramental, something sacred that you can't just toss in the trash.  I brought them home from church, tucked them up high on a shelf in the closet and there they stayed, collecting dust. 

In the old days, in the homes of an earlier generation of Catholics, I remember them being displayed behind sacred art, paintings of the Sacred Heart, the sorts of iconography I don't have.

But in the last 10 years or so, my church has put out a call for old palms a few weeks before Lent begins. They burn the palms and use the ashes on Ash Wednesday — a lovely example of religious recycling. 

I was able to shed a large backlog of palms that way. Now, my house is almost palm free. The "almost" is because ... I picked up another palm yesterday.

Pastry of Champions

The bags are unpacked, the laundry is done, and the souvenirs are stowed away, waiting for their recipients. All except one: the final pastel de nata, the custard tart Portugal is famous for and which I bought a six-pack of in the airport. That one is for breakfast. 

Pastéis de nata weren't the only pastries I purchased at Humberto Delgado Airport. I also sprang for a travesseiro, which was labeled "traditional Portuguese pastry" but which I learn means pillow and is the signature dessert of Sintra, the fairytale town outside Lisbon. 

Maybe I had just had my fill of pasteis de nata by the time I bit into this delicacy the day before yesterday, but in many ways I enjoyed it more: the flakiness of the crusty sweet, its delicate flavor. As you can see in the photo, I couldn't wait to sample it. And now... I can't wait to taste one again.

Beauty Lag?

Returning home is often a jolt. Jet lag, beauty lag. (Is there such a thing? There should be.)

But this time Northern Virginia has pulled out all the stops. The volunteer weeping cherry is putting on a show in the backyard. The daffodils spring from fatter clumps that ever, and hyacinths are perfuming the garden. Lenten roses are in their glory and the periwinkle is blooming. 

Welcome back, say these green and growing things. Feast your eyes on us! Yes, we know all about the  birds-of-paradise and calla lilies on Madeira, but we're pretty too. 

Discoveries

Visiting a city for the second time takes the pressure off. We had already ticked off the big sights, so we could wander and people-watch and spend two hours at a flea market. 

But on the last day of our three-day stopover, we had to see the Monument to the Discoveries again, to ogle the gigantic sculpture. Since it's a short walk from there to Belem Tower, we visited that again, too. 

The tower was the last sight early sailors would have seen as they set off for foreign ports and years-long voyages. It took on a special meaning since earlier in the day we visited the final ship to make the Portugal-India run. It gave us a taste of early navigation, of tight quarters and difficulties braved.

Travel has come a long way since then ... but it's still about discoveries, large and small. 

Springtime in Lisbon

Springtime in Lisbon, or at least the first few hours of it: Trees leafing...

Pigeons begging...

Tourists trollying.

The city shaking off its winter coat and slipping into something more comfortable.

We're Back!

Not home, not yet. A stopover in Lisbon has landed us in the same neighborhood and same hotel that we stayed in two years ago on our first big post-Covid trip. The whole world seemed lit up again when we were here in June of 2022. 

I thought the energy and bustle was springing from all that pent-up travel desire. But the energy and bustle are still here. From the moment we stepped out of the Baixa-Chiado Metro stop to  rousing street music, I felt the pulse of this city, the light and magic of it. 

We dove right in, strolling through Bairro Alto and Baixa, ogling pastry in bakery windows, finding not one but two lovely viewpoints over the city, and crowding onto the Number 28 trolley for our ride "home."

It's fun to explore a new destination, but there's a special satisfaction in returning to the already-visited places, the ones we love enough to see again. 

Pearl of the Atlantic

Today we leave Madeira, a place set apart in so many ways. At a museum of photography a few days ago we saw a promotional film about the island that was made more than a hundred years ago. It had the choppy movements of early movies, and the narration was dubbed in later. 

There were the carreiros pushing toboggans down the hillside. There were men fishing, women embroidering, and flowers everywhere. Long-ago tourists were greeted with bouquets.

Things have changed since then, of course, but the warmth of the welcome has not changed. Madeira made us feel at home from the minute we stepped on its soil. Mostly because of the family and friends who make their home here, but also because of the place itself. 

The film was titled "Madeira: Pearl of the Atlantic." Now I understand why. 

(Sunrise on our last full day in Madeira.)

Saúde, Skål, Sláinte!

It's St. Patrick's Day, time to wear green, play Irish music and offer toasts of good cheer. 

In Madeira, you won't be drinking Guinness but poncha, which is made from sugar cane rum and either orange or lemon juice. It's sweet and sour and a couple of them will make you forget your troubles. 

Since we've been drinking it with folks from Scandinavia, we've been saying "cheers!" or skål!" rather than the Portuguese "saúde!" 

But today we really should say, "sláinte!"

Above It All

Funchal, Madeira's capital city, is tucked between the mountains and the sea. Houses cling to hillsides. Roads rise at 45-degree angles, and highways glide through tunnels (there are 156 of them on the island). 

But even here, there are limits — rocky gorges, mountains cleft by streams and waterfalls. For those less navigable places there are cable cars, gondolas that glide above it all. 

You can take one from the harbor to Monte, and a shorter and less traveled one from Monte to the Botanical Gardens. That's the one we chose on Thursday.

Similar to a ski lift, the car never stops moving. You step in, the door closes, and you are floating hundreds of feet above the ground. I mostly focused on the horizon, but every so often I glanced down or to the side, which gave me a chance to snap this shot. I have a feeling the occupants of the other car were doing the same thing.

Gardens by the Sea

Let's just say there are so many noteworthy gardens in Madeira that I completely confused two of the more famous ones. I thought we were going to the Botanical Gardens when instead the friends we were meeting were visiting the Monte Palace Tropical Gardens — which we had just seen two days earlier.

No problem, they said. You can take a cable car to the Botanical Gardens from here and meet us later. And that's what we did: had a quiet glide across a rocky ravine from one garden spot to another. 

And then... we were wandering beneath arbors groaning with wisteria, past pink and white camellias, strolling past cactus and bromeliads and ferns and a patchwork garden of reds and greens. 

In a way, the whole city is a garden, with bougainvillea pouring over walls, and potted plants on most terraces. And always in the background, the Atlantic Ocean.  

Green and Blue

Before yesterday's excursion, a fellow hiker said, "You will love this walk. Everything is green and blue." She had taken the trail before, so she knew.

But nothing could have prepared me for the particular shades of green and blue, for the commingling of ocean, sky and grass, for the pastoral setting, the lone cows grazing.

There was so much green and so much blue, and when you walked out to the Pico Vermelho viewpoint, it was as if you were walking into the ocean on a gigantic earthen gangplank. Only you didn't enter the sea; you marveled at it. 

From Monte, By Toboggan

One of Funchal's major tourist attractions is riding the cable car (a gondola-style lift known locally as the teleferico) up to Monte, elevation 3,300 feet, where there is a church, a palace garden and a rip-roaring way to come back down — by toboggan. 

Two strong, straw-hatted men (called carreiros) give each toboggan a running start, then jump on and use their thick-soled boots to brake the contraption as it descends the steep street. Sometimes they slide the toboggan sideways so it doesn't gain too much speed. 

The tradition began in the 19th century, when the toboggans — which are woven of wicker in the nearby town of Camacha — were a major means of transporting people and goods down the steep mountainside. 

Now tourists pay 30 euros for a 10-minute ride, and the carreiros are bused back up to the starting point every few minutes. But the tradition, as they say, lives on. 

(Photos: Carreiros mid-ride and walking back from the bus to the starting point.)

Laundry Day in Funchal

Into every traveler's life some errands must fall. And by yesterday it was more than time to do laundry. 

We're lucky to be staying in a little apartment with drop-dead gorgeous views, a tiny balcony, and a small washing machine under the cabinet, where a dishwasher might be in the U.S. 

The machine's buttons were mysterious and there was no information in the apartment that might explain how to turn the thing on, so Tom looked up the owner's manual online. Even that didn't tell us what we needed to know. But he tinkered with the appliance until it came on ... and it stayed on for the next couple of hours. 

I wasn't sure if our clothes would ever be dry again, but I was pretty sure they would be clean. And in fact, they are now both. The drying rack fits over the balcony railing, and, with a little ingenuity, over two kitchen chairs, as well. So by this morning, we had clean, dry clothes. 

It was an adventurous laundry day, Madeira style. 

(Clothespins: a laundry day essential)

The Sé

We had been in Funchal for a full week before I darkened the door of its main attraction, the cathedral, or Sé. I attended mass there, which featured one only brief reading in English, the rest in Portuguese. But that didn't matter. I sat (or knelt or stood) and let the experience wash over me: the setting, the music, the piety.

The cathedral was built in the 16th century, and features a carved wooden ceiling made of Madeirian cedar and a gleaming gold altar. The service was beautifully accompanied by a small choir and orchestra in the loft. The worshippers beside me seemed as awed by the place as I was.

At one time, this cathedral oversaw the largest diocese in the world, because it encompassed all of Portugal's territories in Africa, Asia, North America, South America. A mighty Sé, indeed.

The Scene

Travel is not just those top-of-the-mountain moments; it's also all the moments in between. Checking a train schedule. Staring at a map. Waiting for the bus. 

I did a bit of bus-waiting yesterday, and while I waited, I looked around. It was a bright, busy morning. A group fitness class was huffing and puffing down by the shore. A taxi-driver was trying to poach bus customers. There was a flea market bustling behind us. 

It was a scene, so I just tried to take it in, let it seep into my consciousness so that on some gray and rainy morning I can pull it out and enjoy it all over again. 

There are scenes happening everywhere — but I'm often busy to notice them. 

(Enjoying the scene with a cup of chai latte.)

Mountainous Madeira

Madeira is a mountainous island. This makes for vistas aplenty, some of them vertiginous. A walk we took the other day was along a cliff edge. 

It wasn't right on the edge, and the path was generous, but it took most of my concentration to focus on the path ahead and not look too far out or down. The few times I did, though, I was rewarded with glimpses of blue sky, white waves and lush greenery.

Soon the trail turned inland, and we followed a steep old road down to the shore. The knees were a bit wobbly at the end, both from the height and the effort. But they made it.

To Live on a Levada

It's the end of our first week in Madeira. We arrived here late morning last Friday. Since then we have hiked levada paths, toured northern villages, sampled local food and drink, and best of all, made new friends. 

This trip is a different kind of adventure, staying put rather than moving around, micro not macro. I'll admit, it's an adjustment for me. But it's a delightful adjustment.

As we walk the paths, we pass so close to homes that we can practically smell the coffee being brewed. And we can certainly glimpse the lush gardens being tended and hear the roosters crowing.

What would it be like to live on a levada? To have a house so much a part of its surroundings? I would have to be a different kind of person to find out. 

My Third Leg

To travel means meeting people, as well as places. One of the people we've met in Madeira is an 81-year-old dynamo with orangey-red hair, bright blue eyes and a contagious smile. 

She brings people together, plans levada walks and other excursions. When there's a steep descent, she leads the group. As I was mincing my way down a trail of rain-slicked stones, she offered me her walking stick. "Take it," she said. "It's like a third leg."

I found a stick in the forest so she could keep her own, but she got me thinking about the idea of a third leg. What would I do if I had one? Walk faster? Move more sure-footedly, with a tripod-like balance? 

I like the idea of a spare or two, but it's greedy to ask for more limbs when the ones I have are working fine.  If I did have a third leg, though, I hope I would offer it to a friend. When I did, I would see in my mind's eye the cheerful, lined face of the woman who offered me hers. 

(My third leg, above.)

Valley of the Nuns

Imagine a valley so isolated that until the last 50 years or so, people who were born there seldom left the place. That's Curral des Freiras, Valley of the Nuns. 

Located in the center of Madeira, the valley was once home to an order of sisters who hid here to escape pirates, or so legend has it. The location does make an excellent hiding place, perhaps a little too excellent.

We saw it on a cool morning, with clouds hovering over the mountain tops. We didn't hike down (though we did a similar downhill later in the day), but you can do it if you have the time and the knees.

I'm just as glad I saw it from the peaks, the lack of easy entry or exit giving the place an ethereal quality, like it isn't quite there at all. 

There and Back

The village of Câmara de Lobos is perched near one of the world's tallest cliffs, but it's stunning even when seen from a less-imposing viewpoint. We approached it on foot, walking across a bridge, past acres of banana trees. 

When Winston Churchill visited Madeira, he set up up his easel to capture the bustling harbor we just saw today. A hotel nearby has memorialized his visits with a sculpture of the prime minister. You can sit next to him if you like.  

But the best part of Câmara de Lobos was walking home from it, up into the hills to Levada dos Piornias, taking the high road back to Funchal. It was a balancing act, as the only path was along the edge of the levada itself. But it got us home. 

Toasting the Levadas

Madeira is made for walking, and we took a levada walk on our first full day on the island, joining a group of Scandinavians who gather every Saturday to stroll the paths alongside the irrigation canals (levadas) for which Madeira is known. 

The levadas were built to pipe water from one end of the island to another, but the trails that run beside them have become an attraction in and of themselves. Saturday's hike took us to the village of Camacha, approximately 2,300 feet above sea level. Luckily, most of the altitude gain was accomplished by a swashbuckling bus driver switch-backing up a narrow highway into the hills. We only walked the last few hundred feet. 

Once on the levada trail, we pretty much had the level path to ourselves. We ambled and chatted, took a break to swig some water, then walked some more. 

We ended the hike at a Camacha watering hole that serves the local specialty, poncha, a tangy-sweet drink made of sugar-cane rum, honey, and fruit juice. The leader of our merry band suggested that we sing Swedish drinking songs before every skål! We sang many songs. It was that kind of day. 

Profusion

The climate is mild, the sea breezes are gentle and the plants are flourishing here on Madeira. 

Calla lilies grow wild. Geraniums run riot. Birds of paradise add color and whimsy. 

To walk along a path or sidewalk here is to feast the eyes on bright pinks and purples, to revel in profusion.

Monochromatic Morning

The jet-lagged traveler thinks there's no way she could sleep for 12 hours and miss the beginning of a scheduled hike. But the jet-legged traveler just slept 10 quite handily, so who knows what she could do. 

Now she's fully awake and looking at a sky-scape and city-scape of such generosity and grandeur that she doesn't quite know how to bring it to life on the electronic page. 

The sun is just peeking from behind a small clutch of clouds that are producing some rain across the bay, and a small ferry is moving quickly toward a small island. To my left is the old town, still in slumbering shadow. Directly ahead ... the Atlantic Ocean, which seems to be everywhere you look. This is, after all, an island. And one we'll be exploring soon. 

(It looks monochromatic but that's only because I was snapping a shot directly into the sun.)

Landed!

We flew in long and low, not far above the whitecaps, as the jet circled into position to land in Funchal. We bounced and tilted, I held my breath. And then, quicker than I thought possible, we were on the ground.

The capital city of Madeira is nestled between the mountains and the sea, and the runway of the nearby airport, it's said, is built partially on stilts.

I believe it, just as I'm starting to believe everything I've heard about this place, this jewel of an island with red tile roofs atop buildings of pink and yellow, with homes terraced up the hillsides and a jumble of streets leading down from them.

A jumble of streets I'm itching to explore...