Picture heavy fun review - MSC Armonia - Canary Isles and Madeira - incl. DIY trips

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

hey denisey ... I need help with a saying .... when you describe your tiny hall like room in Venice ... you mention something involving a cat .... I was a bit shocked, since as a foreigner I took the saying literally.... I know you own a cat yourself and are a nice, mentally sane person .... so pleassseeee explain the meaning of this rather odd saying to me. :o thank you!

[Wriggler]

hey denisey ... I need help with a saying .... when you describe your tiny hall like room in Venice ... you mention something involving a cat .... I was a bit shocked, since as a foreigner I took the saying literally.... I know you own a cat yourself and are a nice, mentally sane person .... so pleassseeee explain the meaning of this rather odd saying to me. :o thank you!

 

Hi Stef

 

Denisey will probably be along later but I think you're referring to a small space not being big enough to swing a cat. If that's the case it is from when prisoners were whipped as a punishment. The whip had multiple strands to cause the most pain and was called a cat o' nine tails. The flogger needed to raise his arm to bring the whip down with force and if the space was small there wasn't enough room for him to do this properly.

 

Hope this helps

Carol :)

[denisey]

Hi Stef

 

Denisey will probably be along later but I think you're referring to a small space not being big enough to swing a cat. If that's the case it is from when prisoners were whipped as a punishment. The whip had multiple strands to cause the most pain and was called a cat o' nine tails. The flogger needed to raise his arm to bring the whip down with force and if the space was small there wasn't enough room for him to do this properly.

 

Hope this helps

Carol :)

 

Thanks Carol! I'll admit I would have had to look that up. Okay, no more swinging of cats, that's for sure! But it was a small room!

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Hi Stef

 

Denisey will probably be along later but I think you're referring to a small space not being big enough to swing a cat. If that's the case it is from when prisoners were whipped as a punishment. The whip had multiple strands to cause the most pain and was called a cat o' nine tails. The flogger needed to raise his arm to bring the whip down with force and if the space was small there wasn't enough room for him to do this properly.

 

Hope this helps

Carol :)

 

That was indeed it! Thank you Carol! Lol -- thank God, now I don't have to picture poor furry creatures being tossed through the air anymore:rolleyes:.

 

Well, although the true meaning isn't very pleasant either:o.

 

Anyway --- thanks for clearing that up:p!

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

day five continued --- Monte

After our early morning road trip to Garajau, it was now time to return our rental car. This worked out wonderfully. The nice lady, who had picked us up from port the day before, was chauffeured to the ship by another person of the company to drop her off. We walked to the parking spot at the dead end of the pier and after a small check up on the car she took off with it. If we’d ever visit Madeira again and wanted to have a rental car, we’d surely use them again --- no doubt.

But honestly, the roads and everything else we encountered would make me personally choose a taxi (including an experienced local driver) for the whole day. This is not to say Tanja couldn’t do it --- she drove fantastically and now I always say, since she drove perfectly on Madeira, she could drive anywhere in the world … but I just believe it would take a lot of stress out of myself, knowing the driver knows the various roads ahead and if his or her car can tackle them …. Or not.

So now it was approximately 9:00 a.m. and we were car-less. Our next goal was Monte. A town seamlessly blending into the upper portions of Funchal …. Way, WAY !!! up on the mountain! There are basically three possibilities for us to get there. We could take a taxi, we could walk to shore, walk some more along the coast heading towards downtown and then go for either a public bus or the cable car.

It was sprinkling by now and the weather didn’t look too promising for the near future either… so we decided to go for the most convenient (and driest) version … the taxi.

The taxi-drive up to the church of Monte cost 20 Euros. We thought that’s quite a bit … but we completely underestimated the length of the trip. We drove for about half an hour! Up, up and further up. I am soooo glad we didn’t attempt this ourselves. When we finally arrived… uhm somewhere … we thought that the price was absolutely justified. I guess he recognized our confusion, because he pointed out the trail to get to the church – an old cobblestone path alongside a pretty park. All right --- let’s do it!

We were dropped off right next to this pretty tree:

Right behind it the path to the church starts:

Watch out … VERY slippery when wet … especially on those wanna be steps:

It’s only about a 5 minute walk and then you stand here:

Pretty church, isn’t it? Here’s a partial close up:

here's some info about it:

 

More to come!

Stay tuned!

Stef

[notsodesperatehousewife]

:p thank you !!! :p

 

Lol -- I love your screen-name:D.

 

And I love yours!

 

For the record, Denise's Portuguese is much better than my German. :rolleyes:

 

Also for the record, I'm a working mom with kids around the age of your son. I have enjoyed reading about your family adventures but I also love seeing how the two of you interact when he's not around. Your relationship is beautiful to see.

Edited June 13, 2015 by notsodesperatehousewife

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Your relationship is beautiful to see.

 

:p thank you :p

 

I do love her dearly and fell like we are just made for one another ... we sure are very fortunate to have found us.

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Monte continued

The church in Monte is also the place to meet this man:

May I introduce:

We went inside the church … oops, service in session. The first four rows were full with locals chanting in Portuguese. This is what the inside of the church normally looks like:

foreign picture:

We didn’t take a picture during service ourselves … it didn’t feel right to disturb the parish. However, Tanja wanted to carefully check out the last resting place of the Austrian emperor and slowly made her way forward to the left of the benches to the chapel to the left. Sigh. I didn’t dare to follow. The floor was made up of wood – loudly cracking, creaking wood, making sounds no matter how slowly and carefully you stepped on it.

Tanja got two or three angry and or annoyed glances from the audience up front while on her path …. And I didn’t want to make the “rude tourist” impression even worse … but she kept on waving me up there enthusiastically and I gave in. I started to snail my way forward inch by inch, not daring to breathe … until I managed to reach Tanja with only one more additional small turn of a head from up front …. I still feel bad about it …. Sorry to everybody, who we might have bothered.

Anyway, this is what the Kaiser looked like:

And this is his coffin:

Oh and some more stuff, laying around:

When we tried to carefully hover ourselves over the old floor back to the entrance of the church, we saw that by now around 10 tourists had entered and roamed around carelessly with giving a s*** about creaking wood, loud conversations or constant clicking of cameras. Without wanting to apologize …and I know our behavior was far from perfect here … at least we weren’t the worst ones.

We didn’t really come up to Monte to see the church … we came for Madeira’s most famous attraction: the toboggan ride!

 

But it was real early in the day … and there were no tourists out yet (besides the ones in the church now) … and it was drizzling. Would we even be able to experience it?

Wait and find out!

Stef

[denisey]

And I love yours!

 

For the record, Denise's Portuguese is much better than my German. :rolleyes:

 

Also for the record, I'm a working mom with kids around the age of your son. I have enjoyed reading about your family adventures but I also love seeing how the two of you interact when he's not around. Your relationship is beautiful to see.

 

LIKE!

 

I think this beautiful relationship is a good part of why I love these reviews. Stef could write about going to the store, and it would be fun!

 

(I do miss Tarik just a little bit on this cruise, but am glad you had a romantic trip!)

 

And don't even get my husband started on how poorly I pronounce ANYTHING in any languague...even English!

 

But I'm excited to hear about the toboggans! The B.F. keeps asking if you went on one!

[suekay]

LIKE!

 

I think this beautiful relationship is a good part of why I love these reviews. Stef could write about going to the store, and it would be fun!

 

(I do miss Tarik just a little bit on this cruise, but am glad you had a romantic trip!)

 

 

I second that☺

[Cruisie Girl]

I third that!

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

:p thank you everyone :p.

 

:o I don't know what to say ... I just love Tanja more than the world and I'm happy to hear that some of those feelings are showing in our adventures. Lol -- we can fight quite brilliantly as well from time to time though .... it's not just roses ... but I guess that also is a vital part of a functioning relationship ... so all is good:).

 

 

:(Sorry for the delay, but I caught a mean cold and had to stay in bed with a fever for a day ... getting better now ... but nose still completely clogged. What a nuisance.

 

:rolleyes: but hey, a little fever won't stop me from writing, will it? Let's continue with the review!

 

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Madeira -- Toboggan ride

To start with, here’s a map to show you the whereabouts of the toboggan-starting-point:

 

 

 

 

this map of course only shows the beginning of the toboggan ride ... no worries, I'll have a map of the actual sleigh-route in one of the next posts for ya as well.

We’ve read in multiple reports how busy it gets here and that you need to accept hour-long waits in order to ride down in one of those famous basket-like sleighs.

Well,

It was a cold and rainy morning … our ship was the only one in port … hardly 10:00 am yet. We found some toboggans leaning on the wall…

And an abandoned taxi with more sleighs propped up waiting for customers … imagine hearing nothing but crickets and raindrops when you look at this picture … we seemed to be the only people here.

But wait…

See? Some uhm sleigh-drivers??? I have no clue what their official name is – are standing around at the starting point of the ride. Whoohoo - let’s go hunt down a toboggan!

 

Quick honey, jump in the toboggan --- I’ll take a “before” picture.

Whoohoo, we’re the very first tourists today.

Gulp – would this mean the freshly rained on road would be even more slippery than normal? Would the guides be able to steer the toboggan on the wet surface --- and slow it down in case a car crossed our way?

Well, it was too late to chicken out now … In the next post I’ll take you all along on our breathtaking and quite speedy descent towards Funchal … get ready! Hold on!

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Wheeeee…. They give you a good shove and off you go … you feel and hear the creaking of the basket on the road as you skid sometimes straight, but mostly sort of sideways down on the pavement. Some impressions:

We saw little streams of water, running down the pavement along with us. The guides wear special boots with hammered-on soles made from rubber cut from car tires … but I still had the feeling that sometimes they had a hard time handling our basket on this wet and slippery pavement.

About right here Tanja actually asked me if something had ever happened during one of these rides.

Oh, gee honey, great timing!

Secretly I thought oh no, she didn’t just really ask me this RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW!

But oh well, she wanted to know, so I told her.

Yes, there have been broken bones (mostly ribs) and baskets doing summersaults (of course including the passengers). In Tom’s portguides there is even an anecdote of cruise passengers who had to cancel the rest of their cruise due to their injuries …

Well, that definitely wasn’t what she wanted to hear and the rest of the toboggan-trip she held on to my knee, making the cutest oh-my-god, oh-my-God face.

The road you skid down on is a regular road used by vehicles of all sorts. There were multiple trash cans out for pick-up and streets leading to and from our path.

See, here you see a car wanting to turn into our road already in the mirror. You also cross rather big intersections… Thankfully they had a local stand here and halt the traffic if needed. Well, he stood around with a cup of coffee in hand in front of a café and just sort of hung out …. But I like to believe it was his job to pay attention. I hadn’t read any reports like: “car crashes into toboggan” before our trip afterall. It does feel funny to virtually fly over a regular intersection in a wooden basket though.

Would we survive? Obviously, since I’m back home writing this report … but would we reach the end of the toboggan tour unharmed? Wait and find out!

Stef

[denisey]

Quick honey, jump in the toboggan --- I’ll take a “before” picture.

Whoohoo, we’re the very first tourists today.

 

I like how the Toboggan Guys were holding onto those ropes like it is a wild beast!

 

I took video of our ride down, and it was weird to see cars crossing right in front of us.

 

Sorry about the cold however! This seems to have been a really bad year for them here.

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

I like how the Toboggan Guys were holding onto those ropes like it is a wild beast!

 

I took video of our ride down, and it was weird to see cars crossing right in front of us.

 

Sorry about the cold however! This seems to have been a really bad year for them here.

 

Oh, I'd love to see that video:D. I haven't mastered the art of videoing yet ... just pictures .... but in this case I think only a video can give you a correct impression of the speed and the sounds and the thrill of it all. Very cool!

 

I loooove your nightly photography tour through Venice and the fact that you actually got to experience Acqua alta is firing up my jealousy .... wow! Did I mention I LOVE your blog? Lol -- and I experienced the pepperoni pizza culture shock the other way around when I first came to America .... who would have thought pepperoni meant salami here? Weird world:D!

[denisey]

Oh, I'd love to see that video:D. I haven't mastered the art of videoing yet ... just pictures .... but in this case I think only a video can give you a correct impression of the speed and the sounds and the thrill of it all. Very cool!

 

I loooove your nightly photography tour through Venice and the fact that you actually got to experience Acqua alta is firing up my jealousy .... wow! Did I mention I LOVE your blog? Lol -- and I experienced the pepperoni pizza culture shock the other way around when I first came to America .... who would have thought pepperoni meant salami here? Weird world:D!

 

Hmm....I'll see if I can find the video and post it when I get home this weekend. My camera at the time was a digital "point and shoot" so videos were pretty easy.

 

I also remember that we had a guy jump out and take our picture while riding down the hill. By the time we got to the bottom, there was our picture printed out for us to buy...at a bargain price, I'm sure! But we bought it. I'll have to look for that too....

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

lol – we survived unharmed!

Okay – I admit we were giggling hysterically when leaving the toboggan --- but that was all.

During this wild sleighride they stopped along the way to shoot a free picture with our own camera for us and afterwards they also shot one themselves while we were skidding along. After the ride, you can buy the picture they’ve taken for 10 Euros. It comes in a neat paper binder with historic toboggan pictures as a background and you can request your picture per email to be sent to you as a file for free. We bought it. We usually don’t buy official pictures (ever!), but the guys were sooo nice and not pushy at all and the binder looks really neat as well as the picture, so we just HAD to have it. Here it is:

And this is the one they took with my camera:

When we were done giggling hysterically, we needed a warm drink. We were wet and frozen. Coffee – now please.

Right where they drop you off, conveniently you’ll find three souvenir shops and a café. We bought two excellent cappuccinos and this little cake --- look at it --- remember it well ---- and be sure to find one looking just like it when on Madeira ….. it was heaven!!!!!! It tasted like Crème Brule -- just as a cake…. Absolutely delicious … we bought another one …. We couldn’t resist! My mouth starts to water as I write. The lady told us the name … but I couldn’t remember it (nor repeat what she said at that very moment). Apparently it was a Madeiran specialty. Absolutely to die for!!!!!!

Our seat was also perfect for people watching – you could see the toboggans slide to a stop here … Fun ! These were the people that came after us … About 15 minutes later. See how steep the road is (the tilted car is parked on it), the toboggans just take a slight left turn onto the flat surface in front of the café to stop… this is the place the ride sadly ends.

Here’s a map of the route the toboggans slide down:

Lol – and beware … for those of you who thought you are being brought all the way down to Funchal. Nooooooo. You are not even half way down the mountain.

Look:

There is a taxi stop a couple of meters down after the ending of the ride. They want 10 Euros to bring you to downtown. Lol – later on there will be another taxi stop … now they only want 5 Euros for the remaining distance … Needless to say we didn’t use either one …but more on the walk downtown in the next post.

Stay tuned!

Stef

[PegKay]

I want one or two of those cakes! Yummy looking!

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

This was the view from where we started our walk downhill.

You can see our cruiseship in the distance. Sigh, it didn’t look too far away … and we hadn’t seen much of Funchal itself yet on our journey (except a little stroll along the street of the Reid’s), so we thought by walking we’d be able to experience more.

 

Let me tell ya --- those taxis are there for a reason !!!! The walk is extremely strenuous. You can only do tiny steps because the road is oh so steep . Believe me, your thighs are likely to scream after one single block or maybe if you’re really athletic after two. We liked some of the stuff we saw and you really get good views … but we wouldn’t do it again – ever!

We saw pretty vegetation:

And look – there’s our bridge again

Tanja is indeed standing upright … it really is the road that is leaning. Oh, and see our new souvenirs? We both bought hats/caps made out of cork at the souvenir shops next to the café. …Best of all: water proof … perfect for the ongoing drizzle.

The walk down to the market took more than an hour pretty much constantly straight down a narrow street. Quite luxurious villas, quaint small houses and completely rotten ruins took turns. All over Funchal we saw this bizarre mix of lovingly upheld houses right next to falling to pieces rubbish. But there was never empty space – no matter how small the available lot -- some sort of building was crammed onto it. Well, actually we saw a pretty fancy ruin as well, which made it onto our “most appealing buildings in the world we’d like to live in” list:

We just couldn’t believe a gem like this would be left to fall apart. Just look at this beautiful paving in front of the main door:

I wonder what this was originally … anybody know?

Well, approximately at the site of our newly found favorite ruin of Funchal, the walk gets a lot easier. Now I’d call it a fun stroll instead of a strenuous mountainy descent. Here’s a map of the “stroll” part of our downtown walk:

More to come

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

sigh, let's finish up Madeira, shall we?

 

 

gheeesh , it took me a whole month to write on this island. But be assured the two remaining islands will be (somewhat) shorter.

 

okay, let's go....

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Last post about being on the island of Madeira

This post is about food. Madeiran food. I already showed you the little cake, which we adored so much. Sorry again for the lack of name. But when I researched for Madeira before the trip, I found three foods that I was eager to try …. Sadly there was no mentioning of the heavenly little cakes there.

But speaking of baked goods: I had read of a specialty called Bolo de Caco. Mhhh, I don’t know about English but to a German, this pronunciation doesn’t sound pleasant … definitely nothing one would like to eat anyway. But behind the weird name hides a most delightful gem. A bread made of sweet potatoes. Sounds weird … sure…. That’s why I wanted to try it. I love regular sweet potatoes --- Tanja hates them.

Anyway … I had also read that this bread is a very common snack for the locals to eat between meals … sort of on the way. Well, I thought the place to find it was a bakery … boy did I embarrass myself. I went into a large bakery … surely I’d get my desired bread here, right? First of all I tried to pronounce my wish …. Lol – the Portuguese language and me won’t ever be friends. To me personally it sounds so much like a mock language you would invent as a child. So many Shhhhsss and abrupt changes of vowels. Lol – do you know the movie “Finding Nemo”? It sounds like when Dori is trying to speak “Whale-ish”. Lol – at least in the German version …. No clue what her voice sounds like in English. But I’m drifting ….

Let’s get back to the - at first very confused and then very amused, bakery sales gal. Once she got my drift, she laughed her butt off until she finally mentioned with full body use to keep on walking down the main street which we were already on. Mhh, I wondered what was so funny and if she even understood what I wanted and why on earth I couldn’t manage to buy this bread in a bakery. Well, after a couple of more houses down it dawned on me.

Bolo de Caco is indeed a bread …. But more like in the sense of bread like the Pita in Döner Kebab. It is also eaten hot either with herb butter or ham inside and they have special shops just for this one specialty …. No wonder the lady was amused at my try to buy something like that at her counter. Sigh, at least she had understood my wish …. I felt a wee bit less stupid now.

Here we are in the Bolo de Caco shop:

You can choose between these long stripy ham things and the plain round ones in which they fill the herbed butter. Tanja and I shared a round one. It’s a complete, very filling lunch! It doesn’t taste like sweet potato at all (Tanja was very happy about that). We both thought it was delicious. We had to fight to finish it all, but licked our fingers afterwards …. Howl, I want another one now.

So the two things we ate on Madeira (I’ll exclude the Reid’s, because that counts as British) were stunningly fabulous. Not to mention it was both only sort of finger food. The two other specialty “real”meals I had read about must probably knock you off your feet. But sadly, there was no more time for a “real” meal, additionally to the fact we were so stuffed you could have rolled us to shore by now. However, we got a glimpse of the main “ingredient” of one of the two, when we got to the famous market.

But first of all a picture of the inner yard of the market.

The free ladies room is found underneath the staircase in the back of the picture.

The most impressive hall here is the fish market:

And here is the fish, which is the earlier mentioned specialty on the island:

Lol --- ain’t he a beauty?

How about a close up?

The Espada preta is a fish, which lives only BELOW 1000m under the sea!

Legend says that once, around a hundred years ago a fisher fell asleep at night on his fishing boat. His fishing cord unrolled more and more until it dropped way past 1000 meters into the dark nightly sea. The fisher awoke startled when the end of the roll was reached with a tug and started to retrieve the cord. You can imagine his surprise when at the end of the cord he found this rather fierce looking black fish with an impressive set of teeth. The fish was dead however. As a matter of fact they always are, since they need to be lifted sooo high out of the sea, that the pressure change kills them before they reach the surface.

Today thousands of these fish are being brought up each night (and only at night). They only exist here and off the coast of Japan …. But apparently the Japanese don’t care too much for them. Here on Madeira it is THE fish dish. There are hundreds of recipes, but the most common is served with bananas. Rats, I really would have liked to try that.

The other famous dish is a smoked stick full of chunks of local beef called Espetada. It is special, because it is smoked over special herbs, so the meat absorbs the flavor. This was Tanja’s main wish to try out here…. But oh well, we wouldn’t manage during this trip.

Now all that was left for us was a long stroll along the harbor back to our ship …. Lol … with a stop at the side of the street at a little old lady with only a couple of teeth remaining in her mouth, but smiling as if she just won a million dollars. We bought some woolen stuff from her and had a good time. We were hugged and Tanja was almost kissed. All of us departed in a grand mood … us because of our fabulous new woolen Portugal souvenir and her because of the money she made. A good end to our trip to Madeira.

I hope you enjoyed it. We sure did. However, I wouldn’t say I fell in love with the island. It is too wild, too special for me. Maybe I’m too old, too boring or just too chicken. But the nature on Madeira is made for more daring people than me. The traffic freaks me out and the language just isn’t my kinda thing. But the people are amazing. We encountered many locals who were VERY reserved at first, even appeared quite grouchy … until you gave them an open, friendly smile or tried to communicate in some way or another with them. They’d first look surprised, as if woken up from a daydream and then start the most fantastic beam of a smile you could think of. We got the impression that they were only reserved for so long until you as the foreigner did the first step towards them.

It was a pleasure to get some very few first impressions of this magnificent island with its stunning nature and its wonderful inhabitants … but we probably won’t return on purpose --- but on another cruise, which might happen to have a port stop here -- heck we would definitely go onshore again to do some more exploring. We have barely scratched the surface.

Stay tuned!

Stef

[bdoster]

lol – we survived unharmed!

Okay – I admit we were giggling hysterically when leaving the toboggan --- but that was all.

During this wild sleighride they stopped along the way to shoot a free picture with our own camera for us and afterwards they also shot one themselves while we were skidding along. After the ride, you can buy the picture they’ve taken for 10 Euros. It comes in a neat paper binder with historic toboggan pictures as a background and you can request your picture per email to be sent to you as a file for free. We bought it. We usually don’t buy official pictures (ever!), but the guys were sooo nice and not pushy at all and the binder looks really neat as well as the picture, so we just HAD to have it. Here it is:

And this is the one they took with my camera:

When we were done giggling hysterically, we needed a warm drink. We were wet and frozen. Coffee – now please.

Right where they drop you off, conveniently you’ll find three souvenir shops and a café. We bought two excellent cappuccinos and this little cake --- look at it --- remember it well ---- and be sure to find one looking just like it when on Madeira ….. it was heaven!!!!!! It tasted like Crème Brule -- just as a cake…. Absolutely delicious … we bought another one …. We couldn’t resist! My mouth starts to water as I write. The lady told us the name … but I couldn’t remember it (nor repeat what she said at that very moment). Apparently it was a Madeiran specialty. Absolutely to die for!!!!!!

Our seat was also perfect for people watching – you could see the toboggans slide to a stop here … Fun ! These were the people that came after us … About 15 minutes later. See how steep the road is (the tilted car is parked on it), the toboggans just take a slight left turn onto the flat surface in front of the café to stop… this is the place the ride sadly ends.

Here’s a map of the route the toboggans slide down:

Lol – and beware … for those of you who thought you are being brought all the way down to Funchal. Nooooooo. You are not even half way down the mountain.

Look:

There is a taxi stop a couple of meters down after the ending of the ride. They want 10 Euros to bring you to downtown. Lol – later on there will be another taxi stop … now they only want 5 Euros for the remaining distance … Needless to say we didn’t use either one …but more on the walk downtown in the next post.

Stay tuned!

Stef

 

The pastry is "Pastéis de Nata | Portuguese Custard Tarts"

Read more at http://leitesculinaria.com/7759/recipes-portuguese-custard-tarts-pasteis-de-nata.html#L5JoPBpfEbqJvmyA.99

 

 

Famous in Balem, in Lisbon....The secrets to a crispy, flaky pastry are to make sure the butter is evenly layered, all excess flour is removed, and the dough is rolled very thin and folded neatly. You will need a thermometer to accurately gauge the custard. These are best eaten warm the day they’re made.

Note: Because home ovens can’t match the heat of those at the Antiga Confeitaria de Belém, where these treats were first made, your pasteis may not brown as much as those in the picture.–David Leite

 

 

 

We visit Maderia in November, have waited 8 years to try. Saw them in 2008 when we were in Maderia, never went back to the pastry shop to get.

 

Enjoying your review!

Edited June 18, 2015 by bdoster

[denisey]

Wow! Thanks Stef! I loved "our" visit to Madeira.

 

They have changed the end of the toboggan ride since 2008. Our ride just ended at the end of the street, no café. There were a couple of tables set up with items for sale, but no nice cakes.

 

We debated walking down, but took a cab. There was grumbling about the cost, but I am glad we did.

 

We also ate at a local restaurant in town. It was a very small place, and when we walked in, they kicked out a group of locals to give us a table! They then told us we could have the Bif or the feeeeesh! We had the Bif (beef) and it was very good. I don't know if the fish was your ugly friend, but I wish I had tried it.

 

LOVE the hats!

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

The pastry is "Pastéis de Nata | Portuguese Custard Tarts"

Read more at http://leitesculinaria.com/7759/reci...BpfEbqJvmyA.99

 

 

whoohoo! Thank you Barb!

 

Not only the name --- but also a full recipe! Thank you soooo much! Although I truly doubt I'll ever bake it myself. Lol -- Our oven doesn't get close to 290 degrees Celsius.... I just checked ... it goes to 250 max .... and I never fired it up that high .... ever in it's lifetime ... which is quite a looong time already. I'm afraid it might combust :o:rolleyes::o. But it's oh so tempting. Enjoy your trip in November and eat one for me!

 

 

Stef