Two people walk the same path. One takes sure, steady steps. The other treads more carefully, considering the path ahead. One looks at the buildings, the passers-by, and the sky above; the other's eyes keep to the ground. When asked what they have discovered during the day, one describes the joy of happening upon new sights and sounds and people, even the pleasure of being lost and then finding one's way. The other says, "Wear sturdy shoes."

The Rua de Santa Maria is the oldest street in Madeira's capital city. It begins near the Mercado dos Lavradores (the Farmers Market) and ends at the Catholic Igreja do Socorro, on the crest a hill overlooking the bay.  Pedestrians and cars share parts of the narrow cobblestone street that are not closed off to traffic.

The small, rounded cobblestones make for slightly difficult walking at times, but a strip of flat, halved stones for pedestrians runs down the center of the street. The strip is wide enough for two people to walk side by side unless they meet someone coming the other way or have to dodge a car. (This inspired the conceit at the beginning of this post.) The occasional walker in high heels can even balance along one of the lines of rectangular stone bricks, adopting the stride of a fashion model.

In this relatively unfashionable area of the city, the streets and buildings are not always in perfect condition. One afternoon I watched two workers repairing damage to an area of cobblestones. The first worker knocked cement off the old stones, so that they could be reused. The second worker pounded each stone into a layer of sand, one by one, properly aligned for new cement to fix them in place. Sometimes workers can also be seen resurfacing the walls of buildings on the Rua de Santa Maria and its side streets and alleyways. As with the street work, most repairs seem to be done by hand.

Buildings on some side streets are in a state of outright decay. This street, somewhat ironically, borders the Madeira Story Centre, a museum and cafe that introduces visitors to the city. And yet even this scene has a certain charm--the bones of these buildings can be seen, still solid, still true. The street and its buildings suggest the age of the city, which celebrated its half-millenium anniversary in 2008.

Almost every evening during our stay in Madeira, my wife and I walked back along the Rua de Santa Maria to our rented apartment on a parallel street. Of all the routes we could choose from, this was our favorite. I took this photo after a typically late-for-us dinner in town. It's hard not to fall in love with streets like this.