Volcanic bathing pools, Funchal

Doca do Cavacos, near Praia Formosa, Funchal

https://www.madeira-web.com/en/places/funchal/what-to-do/beaches/doca-do-cavacas.html


I didn't swim in these pools, but I will next time! Went to the big beach, Praia Formosa, at the other end of the rock tunnel, where the Mighty Atlantic sucks basalt rocks off the rocks and hurls them around the ankles of waders. Quite the undertow. I did swim, though. Can never resist the lure of the Atlantic, even though I could have drowned on it, on the Algarve in 1989. 

H and I walked all the way back from Praia Formosa to the Lido, where the Promenade runs out. We intended to walk back through the city, but decided we had had enough, and jumped on the bus instead. We didn't like the west End, with its swanky skyscraper hotels, as much our rundown and ramshackle Old Zone. 

Ate our last dinner in the old town, had our last sea-walk around the fort and back. Endings are sad, but being by the ocean has given me a double dose of relaxation, and I've already  proved to myself that I can return to the same  volcanic island in the Atlantic.