Madeira not just for the wine
By shandyepee
Description: Madeira is off the Coast of North Western Africa, it is a Portuguese Island which as well as exporting wine produces various fruits and is starting to reinvent itself as an active destination. Bike holidays, levada walking and other activities are available to try for a reasonable price. |
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The trials of getting to Funchal and the rewards.
January 21st 2007, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal
Now Madiera has airlinks to major cities in Europe. We chose to go from London. Unfortunatley the only London airport that flies to Madeira is Gatwick. You can get flights from Glasgow or Manchester but we found that Gatwick was the cheapest. But then again with the queuing and the self checkin not really meaning much you can see why. The only bright side to queuing at 6am was seeing Michael Portillo (former British Conservative Politician) queuing looking disgruntled as well.
After getting through all that the plane boarded quite promptly, unfortunately one of the other passengers went missing. So her bags were loaded off, delaying the flight for nearly an hour while her bags were taken off. After a 3 hour flight we arrived in Funchal, my partner being Australian being held up for 10 minutes while I waited on the other side. Sometimes it's fun being an EU citizen, although you don't get cool visa stamps. Still we figured that the bags would be available for collection. Which was a bit optimistic really. After waiting for a while it became clear our bags were missing. So we tramped into the baggage claim office. As it turned out our bags were still on the tarmac at Gatwick. They would be flown out the next day.
So we had a coffee and looked at the light rain at the airport. Incidentally flying in is quite scary as the runway is extended into the sea and the Airport is cut into the hill side. The sun came out and it was quite balmy if slightly damp. After catching the Airport bus we dumped what little we had at our accommodation and left in search of essentials.
We stopped for a spot of lunch at a small cafe and had the Islands most famous dish: Espada com Banana. We also needed to find our mobile phone providers UK number as one of us had lost our phone and we needed it to have a temporary bar put on it. We bumped into a vodaphone shop who gave us the UK number to phone. Problem solved! Finally we found a supermarket and the tourist office. So flushed with our success at toiletries and getting some Madeiran wine, we had dinner at Londres where we were looked after by a jolly waiter. The sea food there is good value. Madeira has lovely ingredients to work with. Londres is popular but as it was low season we got a table.
Finally sated and watered we went for a walk along the Marina and the beach to feel the fine, black volcanic sand. The evening wasn't chilly so it was pleasant. The madeiran wine also helped to console our pain about our delayed luggage.
Accommodation
| Name: |
Residencial Zarco |
| Type: |
Hotel |
| Rating: |
Highly Recommended |
| Atmosphere: |
Friendly |
| Value: |
Great Value |
| Location: |
In the city centre |
This hotel is a small residential hotel. It's not a backpackers hostel so there are no parties and in the low seasons few backpackers. The staff are helpful and fairly polite and friendly.
The breakfast is enough to get you started consisting of Bread(large breadrolls), Condiments, Tea and decent coffee. It is in the centre of Funchal so it is extremley easy to find, the main bus services are a few minutes away. The sea front is fairly close to the Hotel as well.
Being fairly cheap as well means that it is excellent value for money.
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Top Tip:
Go to the post office and get the free Map of the Island in Wallet sized Zcard form. It has a handy map of Funchal.
General Tips:
The supermarket is beside one of the bus depos. It is about 10-20 minutes walk westwards but stocks the essentials and you can see what an espada looks like. Get cheap liters of bottled water for 19c per bottle for your various trips.
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| One of the riverways by Rua 31 Janeiro |
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| The waterfront and the Madeira Balloon |
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| Espada ugly fish, very tasty |
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