My main motivation for creating this web page is that prior to visiting Madeira, I'd spent some time on the net trying to find out a bit about the place. Some info was useful, some not, so I decided to add my own two-pennyworth. No sooner had I decided to do so, than someone emailed us wanting to know what we'd thought. I did think of trimming the text so all you got was the minimum needed to support the photographs, but then decided not to, so what you get is effectively a diary of our week in Madeira. Well, you don't have to read it.
The 3 movie clips are 2.5 - 4.3 Mb in size, so if you don't have a fast link, don't click them! The second movie clip, showing waves at the eastern end of the island, has loud wind noise over the sound of the waves. You don't realise, as you film the scene, that the microphone built into the camera is picking that up until it's too late. Not sure what else I could have done, other than use a proper camcorder with a decent mike.
This was a holiday to celebrate our silver wedding anniversary and was booked at the last minute via Lastminute.com. I'm not sure how we came to book it, as it's not the sort of place we would normally have chosen.
After a 3 hour flight from Luton, things became more interesting when the plane dropped rapidly to below the rather low clouds, then flew in a wide sweep through 180 degrees only about 500 feet above the sea, to finally land on the single runway. This has been extended right out over the sea on tall concrete pillars. Quite dramatic.
As we emerged from Arrivals we ignored all the reps and headed for the car hire kiosks. This was not entirely the right thing to do. We'd not realised that we'd booked a package, and in fact transfer to and from the hotel was already included in the price we'd paid. Not that it was a big deal. I, however, had forgotten my driver's licence, so Jenny went down on the forms as the driver, even though she doesn't do cars. Don't ask, it's too complicated. Suffice it to say, I was convinced, as I drove to the hotel, that the car was uninsured.
Driving along the new highway R101 was just like the main drag along the Costa del Sol near Malaga, where we have relatives, so that was no big deal either. Navigating the local roads to the hotel was slightly more interesting as I realised I knew nothing about the local highway code. Still don't, as a matter of fact. The only actual problem was leaving the slip road from the motorway. It turns out that the crossroads at this particular junction has special rules giving me priority, only I didn't know, so got hooted from behind. This is the junction immediately west of 'spaghetti junction'. Look at a streetplan, you'll see the one we mean!
The 5 star Pestana Grand Hotel turned out to be pretty swish, only a year old and very close to the sea. The bed was about 8 feet wide and the room suitably proportioned to accommodate it. We were on the third floor looking out over the sea, which was only about 100 metres away. I phoned some neighbours of ours (Richard and Lorna) who hold a front door key and persuaded them to locate my licence and fax it to the hotel. Had to use the hotel phone as mine had no credit on it, but it didn't cost a complete fortune.
After lunch in one of the hotel's several restaurants and a snooze to recover from
the 3.30am start, we walked along the promenade towards town. The prom is decorated
with a metre wide strip of black and white mosaic (terrazzo?) meandering down the middle.
The prom fizzles out after a couple of kilometres at a lido area, less than half-way
towards Funchal, and soon after that we came to the local marine biology station. There
was a small beach of mostly pebbles and some grey volcanic sand, so I wandered into the
sea, wearing my South African flip flops, and found it to be definitely swimmable, and
much warmer than I'd imagined. Well OK, maybe 19C instead of 16C! Heading back we walked
past the hotel a little way and found that the mosaic came to an end as a view down on a
man rowing a boat, but we couldn't get high enough to photograph it well. Can't remember
who the statue is of. No-one I'd ever heard of.
Having reached the end of the prom, we leant over the wall and looked down at the sea. A group of about half a dozen small birds settled in some shrubs just below us and we were able to get a good look at them, though we didn't recognise them at all. Back in our room, having brought our bird book, we were able to identify them as serin.
Dinner in the hotel's Italian restaurant was good and I was glad I'd packed an excess of smarter shirts, as tee-shirts are not permitted in the posher restaurants in the hotel. We drank the delicious Quinta do Pancas cab sauv from Estremadura, then had another bottle which we took to our room. Woke up with a hangover, of course!
Breakfast was quite pleasant with the sun shining in through the glass wall of the restaurant area. There was a fairly cosmopolitan self-serve arrangement with a wide enough selection to keep me happy. We had fruit salad and cooked breakfast most days, accompanied by piped pop music, fortunately pretty quiet. Meatloaf at breakfast time I can do without. Piped Meatloaf at all times!
While we were having breakfast, someone pushed an envelope full of package tour stuff under our door and we discovered there was a welcoming meeting going on just then. We got to the 7th floor conference room before it had entirely broken up, so met the Atlantic reps, Jacqueline and Tracy, who booked us on a sailing trip for Weds. Richard's fax had not arrived, but we'd established, via Tracy, that the car rental firm's Funchal office was really close, so we called there. The car carries the insurance, but it was still dodgy as he said if we crashed we should quickly swap drivers. Then we caught the regular bus into town, having missed the courtesy one. The driver seemed ..er.. enthusiastic, but then the one back was the same, so maybe they're all like that.
We wandered around the town, including walking through a pleasant town centre park with coral trees in full flower and large, dusky-orange butterflies which we completely failed to photograph. We did succeed in using up Jenny's last 35mm film, so that camera can get put away forever now. We found the Savoy Hotel, which had been highly recommended by a friend for our anniversary dinner, so booked dinner for Wednesday, then found a cafe for lunch. Sadly it was windy and cold outside, and then the waitress misunderstood what we wanted.
We'd thought the specials were tomato soup and cod cooked with cream, and Jenny tried to order those. However, the specials were actually tomato and cod soups. Having understood what was on offer, we went for the cod soup. After a very long wait, our soup arrived and bizarrely it looked like tomato. Then we found shellfish in it, but no cod. She'd thought we wanted tomato soup with seafood in, so they'd made it specially. Wasn't too bad, but wasn't what we wanted.
Full of soup and beer we wandered around the old town for a while, Jenny looking for
clothes made of the locally embroidered cloth, but it was not to be. Eventually we caught
the bus back to the hotel for a cup of tea and a bath. However, as we walked into the hotel
we decided to try to photograph the rowing man set in the promenade, from the top of the
hotel. We asked at reception and one of the staff kindly took us up to the top floor,
through a conference room and out onto a terrace. We think the next floor down must be
holiday apartments, each with its own little walled-off roof compartment. By clambering
into a couple of those I was able to get some reasonable shots. You still don't get a great
view though.
Back in our room we took a call from Jacqueline who regretted that the weather was going to be too cold and windy for the sailing excursion, so it was cancelled. And waiting for us was Richard's fax, so we went straight back up the hill to the car rental firm and sorted out the documentation properly. Knowing that I worry unnecessarily about these details doesn't stop me worrying! At some point during the day, I forget when, someone had delivered a bottle of Portuguese fizz in a bucket of ice to the room, so we started that whilst lying in the bath. Very civilised!
Dinner was in the hotel's Moroccan restaurant, and also very good. We had another bottle of the Quinto do Pancas, but this time it lasted us the meal. Back up in the room, we finished off the remains of the previous night's red, yet still felt fine in the morning. Not sure how that came about. Wednesday we decided to drive to the north coast to look at the natural swimming pools we'd read about in the guides. First we went west along a rather twisty road along the coast, then joined the R101 as far as it went. It spat us out on the central road north through the island, which followed a spectacular gorge for much of the way.
There's a lot of tunnel-building going on, presumably with EU money, and many tunnels weren't
on the map.
Surprisingly, overtaking is permitted in the tunnels, at least on the straight bits!
Stopping in Sao Vicente for lunch we found nothing in what seemed to be the main part
of the village, and were in any case put off by the music piped throughout.
After 10 mins we retrieved the car from the new underground car park (? 0.50). I've no idea
why I parked there when I could have done so for nothing in the streets, but there you go.
Down at the foreshore
we found, nestling beneath sheer, towering cliffs, a row of cafes and restaurants. We allowed
the owner of one to tempt us inside, but then made the mistake of choosing fish meals, which
were huge. My cod in olive oil was probably not cod and certainly not very nice. Jenny's
mixed fish with bananas was much nicer.
Onward to Porto Moniz at the north-western end of the island, we found the "natural swimming pools" to have been seriously enhanced with concrete and in any case, empty, it being January. We worked out that they pump sea water into them in the summer, presumably for people to swim in. Something of a disappointment.
We opted for the mountain road back, as it looked reasonably straight and do-able in the time we had. We wanted to be home by six to give ourselves time to bath and change for dinner. The road zigzagged straight up what seemed a near vertical cliff, requiring much use of first gear in the rather feeble car. I observed with interest, rather than anything else, that my old vertigo was returning, but decided I won't allow myself to do vertigo. Near the top we stopped to rubberneck, spotting lots of small terraces of grape vines. Then we headed across the centre of the island. As the ground rose and we reached cloudbase, we saw the outside temperature dipping. We hadn't noticed what it was at sea level, but watched it drop to 8C, then 6C, until it finally bottomed out at 4C. Driving through patchy cloud, there wasn't much to catch our attention until we were on the descent, when we found ourselves on a road cut into the side of a gorge. We were obliged to stop and gawp several times!
Having driven straight past a quarry full of the most magnificent rock formations, not being quick-witted enough to stop and photograph it, we eventually rejoined our original route through the mountains and returned to the R101 towards home. Then we decided on another detour, there being plenty of time. We came off the R101 at Cabo Girao and took a minute twisty road up to a viewpoint at the top of some 1000 foot (no idea really how high) cliffs.
Having identified our hotel (right on the end of the most distant built-up point) and photographed some terraces cut into the top of the cliff to our left, we returned to the same exit on the R101 and so home, arriving at 17:55, which is not bad for a target of 18:00.
While dressing for our anniversary meal, it occurred to me that the Savoy might have a tie rule, so I rejected my first choice of shirt, wearing instead one with a nominal collar, around which I wore my silver warthog tie slide. As I never normally wear a tie, I'd not given it a thought when packing. Sadly, and inevitably, my tie slide was considered inadequate and I was forced to borrow a tie from the Maitre D. Then they insulted Jenny by giving her a menu with no prices, since of course, the lady should not be concerned with such trivia; it's the man's duty to look after vulgar things like money. J was seething by this time! And finally the waiter arrived to take our order before anyone had got around to offering us a wine list. When it came I was stumped as most wines were Portuguese, of which I have little experience, of course. I swallowed my pride and asked his advice, choosing the cheapest of his suggestions, which was excellent.
The food was just superb, as John had promised, though the cheese board was rather meagre and disappointing. The view of the lights all up the mountain was great and set off an excellent meal really well, and the price was slightly less than I'd allowed. I did not leave a tip even so, being still pissed off about the start.
Despite the prodigious quantities we'd drunk in the Savoy and then back in our room, we awoke reasonably cheerful on Thursday, and resolved to visit the extreme eastern tip of the island, this being Ponta de Sao Lourenco.
Having got almost to the end of the road, I stopped to photograph a magnificent bank of orange aloes, then we watched a pair of the endemic black caps flitting about in them. Trying to look them up on the net I find no reference to them, so don't now know what they really were, but they looked much like a regular blackcap but with a pinkish face or breast. On the way back to the car we realised there were dozens of lizards in the verge, where previously we'd only seen a few. They were basking in the sun, only scurrying back into hiding as we approached. Creep up slowly and you could get a really good view. As lizards are so rare in England it was a real pleasure to be able to watch them so closely. Then, watching lizards, we spotted snail shells washing out of the soil by the side of the road, and also found bivalve and limpet shells. Unsure whether they had been dumped there by road builders or were real fossils, we collected a few to take back with us.
100m further on we found a way to get to the badlands we'd only seen from the road before, so, hoping for more snails to confirm they'd not just been dumped, we parked again and walked in, but found nothing. Saw a pipit and another serin, both of which obligingly posed for us long enough to study in detail through the binoculars as well as a big blue dragonfly and a bright yellow butterfly with black edges to its wings which didn't. The pipit turns out to be the endemic Bertelot's.
By now it was lunchtime, so we headed back, deciding to avoid the Zona Franca of Canical, but then finding there was no exit off the motorway to the old village, so our next stop was Machico. After wandering around rejecting dark local bars, we found a nice restaurant with lots of tables outside and a good clientele, which augured well, and so it proved. Decent omelettes and half a bottle of something nice and white set us up well for the rest of the day.
Back at the point we parked up, donned walking boots and set off along the trail. We didn't plan to do the whole thing, as it takes 2 hours 30 and we hadn't brought water or anything, but wanted to see what was there to see. The trail was not particularly hard, but we were glad of our boots, despite suffering hot feet, and we made good progress along the south side of the point. After quite a short distance we came to a gap in the hills to our left where there was a short path through so you could see some of the north side.
Wow! What a spectacle! Enormous sheer cliffs of multicoloured layers of rock; reds, yellows, browns, greys, folded vertically in places, blazing in the sun. Beneath them, the waves came crashing in, shooting spray high into the air before swirling and sucking away again, huge foaming cascades pouring down off the rocks, back into the green and white maelstrom below. Sorry, getting carried away! We were awestruck.
Tearing ourselves away we returned to the main path up the next hill. About half way around it we came to a line of rocks placed deliberately across the path, though it wasn't immediately obvious where we were supposed to go. Eventually we realised the path led straight up the hill, at right angles to its previous direction. We found a narrow, zigzagging path up the first bit, then carried on climbing on mostly bare rock for a while, before the path then veered off east again, following a huge dyke to the next gap in the line of hills. Here we decided to turn back, but not before peering over the lip in front of us. Another small inlet bounded on three sides by vertical cliffs, with surf surging powerfully around a huge stack in the middle.
As we watched, tons of water seemed to pour into an invisible hole to the left of the stack before surging violently out again, forming a big whirlpool as it did so. Not somewhere to go for a paddle! Finally we returned to the car, having really not gone far, but hot and sweaty nonetheless. An ice lolly and a bottle of juice from the man in a van conveniently situated where all the thirsty walkers emerge was just what we needed.
On the way back we caught a glimpse of a huge, soaring bird of prey. Might have been some kind of eagle, but we didn't really see it well enough to be sure. The view from the side at the same height as the bird doesn't give too many clues.
In the evening we ate at Marisqueira o Barqueiro, a fish restaurant at the western end of the promenade. Food and wine just delicious and the first place we'd found that actually sold Madeiran wines! The white Enxurras was delicious. It's from near Porto Moniz and is made from verdelho and arnsburger grapes. The portions were vast and we wasted much of it.
On Friday we returned to the Ponta de São Lourenço, but first located the supermarket behind the previous night's restaurant, where we bought the makings of a picnic: flat bread, local cheese, smoked pork, fruit and juice, and a cheap knife to cut it all up with.
We spotted, as we passed the well-stocked fish counter, espada, which is the scabbard fish I'd had the previous night. It's clearly a deep sea jobbie, about a metre long, black with huge eyes, maybe 3 cm dia, big mouth full of long, wicked-looking teeth and long dorsal spines, though those might just have been bits of the dorsal fin. Rather thin and wasted looking, suggesting there's not too much flesh on them, as you'd expect. I wondered just how smart it was to exploit a fish like that.
Towards the point, I stopped the car just before where we had done the previous day, in order to look at some strange root-like things in a grey substrate. I'd pointed them out to Jen before and we'd examined them through the binoculars, but as we were there I thought we could take a better look. Worth it, too, as the beds turned out to be the source of the snail shells, and the root-like things probably were fossilised roots. We collected several different species of snail and a millipede, and took quite a few photographs. Jen noticed a layer of lava and one of basalt above the bed, so concluded from her reading that the shells must be at least 400,000 years old, as that was the date of the most recent eruption. By the time we got to the car park it was already lunchtime, so we sat at a bench and ate our picnic, dumping the rubbish in the car before heading off.
First thing we saw was a pair of kestrels mobbing a buzzard with much shrieking and stooping. At the time we thought they were sparrow hawks, as the wings were quite broad and rounded, and the tails broad too, but they had prominent white rumps with a matching patch below, so the book confirmed them as kestrels when we got back.
Then it became clear that we'd misunderstood each other. I thought we were walking to the end of the path and hoping to swim there, while Jenny thought swimming wasn't possible at the end and had planned just to cut off down to the first "beach" you come to. So we compromised and did what she wanted. The beach was very stony, but deserted, so we walked to the far end where there was a minute amount of grey sand. Sadly, the water was just too cold for easy swimming, and also a bit rough, given the number and size of the boulders, so we just sat in the shingle and soaked up rays for a bit.
Frustrated by being unable to swim we finally set off back. I climbed the hill to where the kestrels had been mobbing the buzzard but was still unable to get a good view of the birds. We were earlier than the previous day, so ahead of the rush hour and got back quickly and easily. First thing we did was head for the indoor pool, and we were glad we'd not tried the outdoor one, as the wind was quite chill. The indoor pool has a lobe outside and you can swim through, which we did, but I found my head was getting too cold, although the rest of me was OK. The water is heated, but still rather cool. Changed back into civvies we hit the bar for a swift Coral (local beer), while deciding what to do for dinner, settling on the Moroccan, Au Tagine, again. That morning we'd noticed people removing the ghastly Christmas lights from the garden behind the hotel, so in the evening were pleased to see they'd all gone.
The following day we weren't quite sure what to do, but finally decided on the Botanical Gardens and possibly a reverse walk on a nearby levada, ie going in the opposite direction to the route in the book. The first thing you come to in the gardens is the natural history museum, but it's a sad, depressing place. There are lots of fossils, but not labelled up in a useful way, and the bird display is embarrassingly bad. Taxidermy is evidently not a local strength.
The garden itself didn't immediately impress either, though the layout takes full advantage of the steep hillside on which it is located. Being January, there was rather more green and less colour than we'd likely have seen later in the year, but still, there were some gems, mostly stuff we'd never heard of and whose names we instantly forgot. One I do remember is Domeya wallichi, a medium-sized tree from Madagascar, with large leaves and drooping clusters of pale pink flowers. Most attractive. Managed not to photograph it, somehow. There were large plantings of orchids, but rather few were actually flowering. Moving down the slope we came to a cactus and succulent terrace which Jenny enjoyed a great deal. I'm not keen on the cacti, though I do like many succulents. Beyond the cacti you can see a formal bed laid out in geometric patterns of different coloured coleus, which was pretty impressive. Not really our style, but well done.
There was a spectacular euphorbia with real "wait-a-bit" spines, in which we saw a black spider with white abdominal marks lurking in the middle of its spherical web, and close by a bright red shield bug and 2 large lizards. Good watching! Managed not to photograph the beasties, though we did get the euphorbia.
Further down yet, a pleasant cycad garden set in the lawn, with a small pond with terrapins. We sat on a concrete bench and ate our lunch, feeding cheese rinds to a tabby cat that came nearby. The sun was hot and we were largely sheltered from the wind.
Comfortably full, we wandered into the adjoining Bird Garden, hoping, amongst other things, to see hornbills which we'd read about in the guide book, but we were disappointed. Lots and lots of smallish wire cages with concrete floors and a couple of sticks, almost all containing a few parrots. The big walk-through macaw aviary had several birds in, but was closed, so you couldn't walk through at all. Although parrots are pretty, and they had lots of different types, we were quickly sated and gave up.
Leaving the gardens by the lower exit we eluded the rapacious taxi drivers and walked down the hill to the commercial orchid gardens. This was well signposted right up until the very end, at which point there was suddenly no clue where to go, but fortunately we soon found it. The hills being so steep, we'd have given up if not so quickly successful.
There were masses of orchids on display in full flower, and of many varieties, from those with a froth of small flowers to lady's slippers with single huge ones. One particularly appealed to us as it was heavily scented. There weren't any immature ones on sale of course, and in the end we compromised by buying a smaller hybrid whose flowers we preferred but which was slightly less strongly scented, the advantage being that it would go more easily as hand baggage. Even so the check-in clerk sucked his teeth at us!
Then we had to walk back up to the car, which was a slog! We took it in several stages!
After a beer and a swim, Jenny read her book in our room, while I went down to the foreshore to record the sound of the surf. It took several goes just to start, as first I realised, once outside, that I'd need a card key to get back in through the side gate. Having smiled on the way out at the two Scottish couples we've seen at breakfast most days and also in various restaurants, I then grinned at them going back in, and waved my new cardkey as I went out again, which got a laugh. Finally down at a good looking spot, I discovered there was no disk in the recorder, so had to go up to the room again to get it. I snuck in, hoping they'd not notice.
Then I found a quiet spot where I thought the mike was mostly out of the wind and could still pick up the sound of the surf and set it to record, moving away so my rustling wouldn't be picked up, and left it running for 20 minutes. Although I could hear that it was recording, I couldn't really tell what it was like as there was so much wind roar blasting my ears. Back up in our room I was disappointed to find it sounded just like slightly variable white noise, and not like the crashing surf I thought I was recording. Perhaps there's a special technique.
Then we went back to the fish restaurant at the end of the prom, being too whacked for anything more demanding. When I randomly selected one of the white Madeiran wines, the waiter said he wouldn't recommend that one, and suggested the Enxurras which we'd had the previous time, then the Seical instead, which was a nice, off-dry, fruity wine which we really liked. Not enough to import ourselves, but nice enough. We skipped starters, but still had far too much, though Jenny did get through all her scabbard with wine and garlic. I only managed half my slab of fried halibut, and we hardly touched the vegetables. Not sure they'd come across the concept of a doggy bag, but it provided some of our lunch the next day.
Back in the room we sat nattering and demolished far more of a bottle of Portuguese red than was good for us. Well, I did. J was reasonably restrained. So on Sunday morning I was slightly fuzzy around the edges, but we still made a reasonable start and headed back to the quarry I'd failed to stop at the other day.
The most direct route to the R101 takes you up a steep road to a tee-junction where you have to
turn left. It can be tricky, but I'd concluded some days previously that it was another of those
junctions where the minor road actually has priority, so cheerfully barged my way out. Nope, not
the way I'd thought at all, so I got lots of hooting, shouting and arm waving. Fortunately everyone
was going slowly enough to miss me, and that was actually the last time I needed to turn left there
when there was any significant traffic.
The old road up to the pass in the centre of the island is pretty twisty and steep, but gives spectacular views at various points and we stopped at one of these viewpoints to gawp at some of them. We'd passed a bunch of motorcyclists scattered around a cafe at the bottom of the hill, and while we were rubbernecking at the first viewpoint, heard them set off in our direction with much revving and roaring of engines.
Listening to their progress up the hill I was well prepared when they started to appear, so got several photographs of them. Sadly I didn't have the wit to put the thing in movie mode, so only got stills. What a dork!
At the pass we turned left onto the ER110 and found the quarry within a few hundred metres. While Jenny wandered around looking at abandoned buildings, I set about first photographing it, then doing a sketch.
Sitting across the road on a stretch of armco I was alarmed by the sound of falling rock. As I watched, I couldn't see any, but looking up at the top of the cliff right opposite me it all seemed to move outwards, and I ran off down the hill until it became obvious it wasn't all going to come crashing down. Just the standard optical illusion you get when you look up at a peak, exaggerated by the sound of a few pebbles falling down the cliff face! The sketch was very difficult, so I really just jotted down an impression, then, not wanting to keep Jenny waiting too long, decided to do a proper drawing from the photos back at home.
Further west we came to the turning for Rabacal where we'd planned to do our one and only levada walk, but found that the road down to it was gated off, though open to pedestrians. Silently relieved, I was happy to set off walking the 2k down to the start of the official walk, though it was to prove a hard walk back! And, though I'd have coped quite happily with the road, it was understandable why the guidebook had described the road as hair-raising and why they'd closed it; single track with passing places, no barriers at all and seriously steep and winding, with precipitous drops if you got it wrong. We assume a tourist had gone over the edge some time in the past 5 years, since that was when the book had been published.
Although the sky was blue as far as the eye could see and the sun was blazing down on us, we'd seen cloud building below us on the south-western slopes as we drove up. As we set off down the road to Rabacal it had been just appearing through the lower passes just west of where we were, so I was afraid that within quite a short time we'd be enveloped in cloud. Fortunately (as ever!) my fears were unfounded and the day stayed bright and warm.
Partway down we heard lots of high chirping in the shrub ericas to the side of the road, and after a while managed to spot the culprits - a group of perhaps half a dozen firecrests, flitting about the bushes. They weren't exactly unafraid, but it we stayed still, or moved very slowly, they ignored us. We didn't need binoculars, which give you an idea of how close they were. One of the websites I've visited since suggests they're an endemic subspecies. At Rabacal there's just a holiday chalet (I think) and one house, and I can only assume the householder looks after the levada. There's a paved terrace with some extremely rustic picnic tables, so we sat in the sun for lunch before setting out.
And were immediately surrounded by chaffinches looking to share our lunch, which of course, they did. Quite tame, the bolder of the males would grab a piece of bread from your hand, touching their feet on your palm for an instant as they did so. The females weren't quite so courageous, but still came very close. Jenny looked them up in our bird book and there are several minor coloration differences relative to the UK chaffinches. The aforementioned website thinks they're also an endemic subspecies. After lunch and a wee (nasty stinky loos) we set off along the quite enchanting levada. The actual walk was shorter than the distance we'd already walked to get there, but that didn't matter. Not far along, we spotted white stuff on the ground, and realised it was ice crystals, which was a surprise; it was pretty chilly, but we'd not realised it was as cold as that. Presumably that small patch of ground never gets any sun in the dead of winter, so stays cold all day.
At the end of the 1.2k walk was a very thin but high waterfall which we photographed of course. This photo doesn't really do justice to the sense of place, which is a shame. You could almost imagine it being a sacred grove a few thousand years ago. Having seen as much as there was to see we walked back, enjoying it as much as we had on the way out. The grind back up was as hard as we'd imagined it would be, but we took it in short stages with frequent rests, and it wasn't that long before we were back at the top.
I had decided I could get away with gassing up in Funchal, as it was only a few kilometres to the airport, so the gauge would show full when we arrived, and fortunately found a gas station close to the hotel, so filled up last thing on Sunday.
We had hoped to eat in the hotel, as we were knackered, but they only had the Atrium open doing "Steak on a Stone" which didn't appeal at all, so we had the helpful receptionist book us a restaurant in Funchal. One of the books recommended O Jango amongst others, and he supported that, so phoned for us. We took a taxi into town, but found a crowd of people outside the door. Turns out there's no bar where you can wait, so you wait in the street. Good job it wasn't raining.
After about 20 minutes we were let in and put right next to another English couple let in at the same time. We were so cosy we spent much of the meal chatting, though I'm sure both couples would have preferred to have been alone. They were nice, though, and I think my reservations were more to do with the compulsory camaraderie than anything else. The food was excellent, and much cheaper than in the hotel or the fish restaurant, though the red Enxurras was decidedly vin ordinaire ! Not nearly as nice as the white.
Despite it's "not being our sort of place", we're talking about going back when the sea is warmer and doing some diving, as well as a few more levada walks.
Madeira has the most snail species of any island in the world and Jenny's museum has extensive collections of them, so our excitement at our finds was misplaced. Ah well.
Last updated 30th March, 2007 by Rob Clack counter by www.digits.com