Wind Star, The Colorful Canary Islands ex Lisbon to Santa Cruz

8 Night Cruise sailing from Lisbon to Santa Cruz aboard Wind Star.

Highlights of this cruise:

Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city of Portugal. a lively and multicultural place. Pre World War I wooden trams clank up steep gradients, past mosaic pavements and Art Nouveau cafés, and the medieval, village-like quarter of Alfama hangs below the city's castle.

Modern Lisbon has kept an easy-going pace and boasts a vibrant, cosmopolitan identity from large communities of Africans and Asians. In 1994, Lisbon was European City of Culture, while in 1998 the city hosted the last great Expo of the millennium.

There are few monuments and little art in Lisbon, largely due to the 1755 earthquake. There is one building from Portugal's golden age – the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos at Belém – that is the equal of any monument in the country. More modern developments include the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian museum complex and the Tómas Taveira's amazing postmodernist shopping centre at Amoreiras.

Funchal
Funchal is the centuries old capital of Madeira, an island in a Portuguese Archipelago consisting of Madeira, Porto Santo and the uninhabited islands of Selvagens or Desertas. Funchal is located in an absolutely unique area. The almost 'amphitheatre' like formation it rests in begins on the beach and rises almost 1200 metres on gentle slopes.

Funchal is an enchanting town set on a glittering bay against a background of soaring green mountains. Its historic core overlooks the harbour and features some fine government buildings and stately 18th century mansions.

Attractions include the botanical gardens located on the edge of the city, and after that the famous Monte toboggan ride back into town. East of the city and rising to a height of almost 600 metres is Cabo Girão, the world's second-highest sea cliff. The rest of the island is easily reachable from Funchal, including the characteristic triangle-shaped houses at Santana on the north coast, and the secluded deep-valley location of Curral das Freiras, where nuns sought refuge from invading pirates in the mid 16th century.

Santa Cruz
The most varied and one of the most attractive of the Canary island group, Tenerife offers a truly incredible variety of landscape, vegetation and climate, owing to the high mountainous crest which clearly divides the island in two. Giving, on one hand, a lush, fertile and humid North Coast and a dry, desert like, arid Southern Coast on the other.

Santa Cruz de Tenerife is a very friendly town with beautiful parks and lively streets. The port area is the town's real center: Plaza de España, with its Cabildo Insular and Plaza de la Candelaria with its impressive 17th century Carta Palace. More sights are the baroque church Iglesia de la Concepción, the Museum of Painting and Sculpture and the castle Castillo de Paso Alto.

Close to Santa Cruz there are the beaches Las Gaviotas and Las Teresitas, and an outstanding view over the island can be seen from the mountain Monte de la Esperanza, located 20 km’s from the town.