Smile - You're in Calheta

One of the oldest parishes in Madeira, is Calheta.  The name Calheta, actually means ‘small beach’.

Continuing on our travels.  

If you haven't seen our previous post, read it here.  

You won't want to miss the beautiful

Saccharum Hotel Resort & Spa.

Once we managed to tear ourselves away from the wonderful surroundings of this fabulous hotel we went out and about.

A word of warning.  It is best to go walking early morning before the sun reaches its hottest!

This pretty parish has an old sugar cane factory, which was founded in 1901 and is still producing sugar cane honey and sugar cane spirit now (known as aguardente).  The sugar cane syrup was a favourite of mine on my morning breakfast of fruit and yoghurt.

More about the sugar cane factory in another blog.  Malcolm took many photos there.  It certainly warrants its own blog to be sure.

Calheta is also famous for a wide variety of fish found in the coastal waters.  Indeed, in the marina, we spotted these fishermen.

Absolutely fascinating watching these hard working fishermen in the marina preparing for their fishing trip.

The Marina is really pretty. There are lots of trips on offer, from fishing to whale and dolphin watching.

We didn't do any of those mainly because we were only there for 7 days and as it was our first trip we wanted to see a bit more of the island.

Maybe next time! :)

The many waterfalls are so pretty.

 We couldn't believe the size of this variegated rubber plant!  

A little worried about the one growing in our conservatory now!

And Malcolm thought I was a little dotty when I stopped to take a photo of the fruit and veg in the supermarket.  Wow!  I think our supermarkets should take a page out of this book!  Just amazingly fresh and beautifully stacked.

Thank you for visiting our travel blog, we hope you will visit again soon.

The island of Madeira, I think, will take quite a few blogs.  There is so much to see and do on this beautiful island.

Hope to see you again very soon.

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