Madeira - Day 27 - Children's Carnival Parade

Yesterday I spent on the couch. Nothing wrong, just stuck into a book I couldn't put down. The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson. She wrote Crow Lake and I had much the same reaction to that one.

After I finished the book I had another go at painting.

I'm never particularly happy with them but I am trying different techniques and learning the way watercolours work.

Halloween may be big in North America but, in Europe, its Carnival. The kids go to school dressed in their costumes (same as Halloween), the teachers go to school dressed in their costumes (same as Halloween). But at Carnival they all head downtown.

As I headed down the hill today at about 10am I kept coming across groups massing

or heading down into the centre of town.

Along the main shopping street a path had been cordoned off and spectators were taking positions. I found a spot and stayed there for the duration, just giving it up for small periods so that parents or grandparents could push through and take their pictures.

Too little to be in the parade but not too little to dress up.

As a brass band played

an announcer shouted out the names

of each school as they headed out.

Some I couldn't identify but there were a lot of pirates, princesses, policemen and super heroes. Spiderman was the most prevalent.

A perfect Hermione.

Many wore face paint.

Lots of wigs.

A dance school danced their way along the route.

One very large school had everyone dressed as Minions

The littlest ones all the way up to the teachers.

My favorite was the school that had the different classes dressed in traditional clothing.

I wasn't able to identify some of them

But these were the guys who worked on the sleds that come down from the Monte

farm workers

and fishermen.

I think I must have seen every child in Funchal. The parade took over an hour and then it was pretty chaotic for a while as parents and teachers tried to keep the groups together to march back to school. They have next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off school.
I headed up the hill behind the municipal garden, past the museum I had been to the other day. I was heading for the convent but when I got there the sign said it was closed every day from 12 to 3. As it was 12:30 I kept going as there is a fort further up the hill. But then I found another museum; Universo de Memorias.

Another place where I couldn't take pictures inside. This was a manor house; inlaid wood floors, painted ceilings, but was being used to display the collections of Joao Calos Abreu, who was the Minister of Culture for Madeira.

He traveled the world and bought back art and artifacts from all over. There was one room devoted entirely to men's ties, another huge room with horses (massive wood and stone sculptures, porcelain chinese war horses, tiny little glass and china horses, horses in silver, bronze .........) pocket watches, cases and cases of jewelry and every available wall space was covered with paintings.

View from the balcony. I wandered for a while on my own and then joined up with an English speaking tour already in progress.

This guy really had a thing for horses.

A serious thing for horses.

I decided to try and cut across the city, rather than go back down the hill and have to come back up it to go home. Not easily done as there a lot of dead end streets and streets that look like they are going down then turn up or look like they are going up and then turn down.

Heather had asked, in an e-mail, if there were any houses with tiles at their doors, like in Mallorca and I found one street

with these religious

painted tiles by the doors.