My favorite way to see a city is to walk through it. Cities have textures of different kinds; I like the feeling of being immersed in a city, moving at a slow enough pace to appreciate what it has to offer. Not all texture is to be felt: much of it is visible in the buildings I walk by, the people I pass, the streets I cross. Even the sidewalks.

These photos are of the area around the cathedral in Funchal, the capital city of the island of Madeira, where my wife and I spent time recently. We walked a good deal, on sidewalk mosaics of dark gray and creamy white stones. Some representational mosaics can be found--a row of fleurs-de-lis, a coat of arms, a historical image--but most are simpler patterns. 

I'm struck by the amount of skilled labor needed to produce and maintain these surfaces. The lines between the gray and white are formed by the careful placement of individual stones. Each stone is only a couple of inches across.

These sidewalks aren't just there to admire, of course. They're part of ordinary living in Funchal. This is the Praça do Municipio, the city hall plaza, where an outdoor TV screen was set up for the World Cup. One evening last week we joined a few thousand soccer fans to watch Portugal play Spain. The area was very quiet afterwards.

 Down the street from the cathedral, we walked by a car show one day.

And on the Praça do  Carmo, we watched a group of university students dressed in medieval costume play music one evening, followed by a fado concert.