Thursday, June 19, 2008

FRANCE and FUNCHAL at Tenerife 1969-04-25

Two beautiful passenger liners of the 1960's: the French Line proud flagship FRANCE and the Portuguese FUNCHAL.
The photograph was takenon 25th April 1969 at Santa Cruz de Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, a few minutes past 18h00 and the FUNCHAL was sailing for Funchal, Madeira and Lisbon, while the FRANCE was doing one of her most famous cruises, the IMPERIAL CRUISE to St. Helena island. It was a special cruise to comemorate the 200 years of Emperor Napoleon's birth.
At the time the Insulana flagship N/T FUNCHAL was the best and the fastest passenger ship operating between the Iberian Peninsula (Lisbon) and the Canary Islands. The old girl is still in service as a classic cruise ship operating under her original name and flag of Portugal while the FRANCE was withdrawn from French Line service in 1974 and laid up in Le Havre until 1979. She was then converted in Germany into the cruise ship NORWAY. As the BLUE LADY she is now being scrapped at Alang, India, and presents a very sad sight.
Texto e imagens /Text and images copyright L.M.Correia. For other posts and images, check our archive at the right column of the main page. Click on the photos to see them enlarged. Thanks for your visit and comments. Luís Miguel Correia

6 comments:

SERGIO@CRUISES said...

Adorei imenso esta imagem, navios que tenho muita admiração.
Com saudações da MAdeira,
Sergio Ferreira

paulorenato said...

the beauty and the beast

LUIS MIGUEL CORREIA said...

Dois belos navios. Da primeira vez que o FRANCE esteve em Lisboa, em Fevereiro de 1964, o FUNCHAL estava também atracado no Cais da Rocha. A proporção enre os dois era a mesma da fotografia...

LUIS MIGUEL CORREIA said...

Paulo Renato,

Para mim, duas belezas. E já não há navios assim de cascos pretos. As chaminés amarelas são também cada vez menos

SERGIO@CRUISES said...

De casco negro só a Cunard que mantém a longa tradição....momentos que nunca se esquecem ao ver tão belos navios.

SERGIO@CRUISES said...

Com cascos negros só mesmo a Cunard Line, para manter uma tradição....é mesmo magnifico ver estes navios.