Cruise bonanza didn't materialise, Mountain snow, EU bus legislation, & other snippets
TODAYS PHOTO : Anyone able to tell me where you will see this lamp formation? This is one I took myself.
Source : Diário de Notícias 25/3/2008
Taxi drivers were pretty displeased with business, after 5 cruise ships docked bringing 8,000 visitors into Funchal. Instead of having a field day, nearly all the visitors went straight onto excursions, took the free shuttle on offer into Funchal, or chose to walk. The souvenir shops didn’t take much money either.
Monday afternoon the temperatures in the high zones of Madeira lowered to around 2ºC, bringing many spectators into the mountains hoping to see some snow. They did see some snow, well it was more hail really, but it was insufficient to make a winter landscape and melted quickly soon after. I don’t know about anyone else, but these last few days have been the chilliest so far this year for me … so much for the first day of spring last Friday. The newspaper has been forecasting temperatures of around 21-22ºC over this way the last few days, but they have been well off the mark.
In a political story about European legislation, the accusation is made that little of that which ought to concern Madeira, actually reaches Madeira, due to a failure in national government in Lisbon to follow procedures for passing on such information. So that would perhaps explain why everything which happens here does so much later than in mainland Portugal?
The numbers of registered unemployed on Madeira rose from 8,392 in February 2007 to 8,786 last month, a rise of 4.7%
A Scotsman by the name of Forsyth managed to win the 2008 Madeira Open golf tournament, the first Scotsman to ever do so. Quite some achievement judging by the weather conditions they had to contend with.
Source : Daily Telegraph, UK – 25/3/2008
Bus passengers who travel along a route of more than c.50 kilometres must get off the vehicle partway through their journey to comply with new EU laws. The Brussel’s ruling dictates that drivers must pull over and get everyone off their bus after 50 kilometres, to ensure they do not spend too long behind the wheel. The driver is obliged to pull over and ask everyone to get off before the route number on the front of the vehicle is changed, and all the passengers are invited back on board. Passengers have been told they must buy a separate ticket for each 50km in order to complete the journey. This is already happening in the UK, and maybe will apply here in the future, but thankfully there aren’t too many 50km routes here.
Portugal play Greece in a friendly football game tonight … a chance for Portugal to get a smidgen of revenge for the 2004 European Championship final defeat. (RTP & RTP Madeira 7.45)
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Der,i see that lamp formation most weekends after coming out of my local bar.
1Ginga.
no Ging, it's one lamp, not double/triple/quadruple(or whatever comes next) vision!
2–Der
Hi Der , its certainly been chilly the last few days, and i guessed it would snow a little upstairs.
3–Tobi
I expect the Scotsman was use to the conditions and maybe had an advantage. Maybe we will get Tiger Woods here next year!!
Tom
4Tom
On the point of Taxis. I thought that in Funchal they all should have meters. Out of the last 6 Taxi rides I have taken only 1 had a meter and he charged a fair price.
Tom
5Under a law that came in this year all taxis should have meters, and those in Funchal should have already had them. Strange?
6–Der