Madeira Day 3 - West Coast

Wednesday we took a minibus tour to the west of the island. The buses take 8-12 people and have a guide that gives interesting information about the island and sites along the way. Most of the guides speak 3-4 different languages (German, Spanish, English, and Portuguese) - pretty impressive!

Here are a few highlights:

Cabo Girao - one of the tallest sea cliffs in the world

A small fishing village along the coast.

Beautiful views of the countryside. The longest straight road in Madeira is only about 4km long. That gives you a feel for how many twisty, windy, switchback roads we traveled. The elevation is constantly changing as well - our ears were always popping. Thankfully we didn't get "bus" sick.

We stopped for lunch in Porto Moniz on the north west coast of the island. We had our first taste of the traditional dish of fish and bananas - it was delicious!! The rocky coastline and water color impressed us the most in this town. They have natural pools where you can go swimming. We had our suits but unfortunately it was a little too cold.

Next stop was a waterfall

Final views before heading back down into Funchal

Flowers and other interesting vegetation on the island

Madeira Day 2 - Levada Walk

Water is Madeira's most abundant natural resource. About a month ago heavy rainfall over a 1-2 week period caused some serious flooding and landslides that damaged parts of the island. We saw construction work to rebuild damaged areas, but things seem to be pretty much back to normal.

Levadas are handmade channels that carry water from the mountains down into the valleys to be used for irrigation and drinking. We went on a guided 11km hike along one of the levadas in the central region of the island known for its waterfalls. The weather was very overcast, cloudy, and rainy at the start of the day but thankfully cleared up by the afternoon. We were about 2-3 weeks early for the wildflowers that grow all along the trail but we still enjoyed the green and did get to see some flowers. Check out the giant dandelion, it hasn't flowered yet. How'd you like to see that in your salad (quite a mouthful - right Dad)?

After the hike we walked for about 30 min to get into the city of Funchal and explored the old city, market, churches, and along the waterfront before heading back to our hostel. If you get dizzy looking at these you can thank Allison - she likes to put an artistic flair in her pictures - it does give them more pizazz! For the record, she did admit she might have overdone it a bit! :O)

At the market we got to sample some different kinds of fruit. The lady at one stand came right up to us. If you stop to look for just a second, a piece of fruit will be thrust into your hands to sample. They'll rattle on in Portuguese/English - "Very good - you try....you like? You buy?" Allison and I sampled different kinds of passion fruit, anonas, and mango. It was all yummy. I even used a little Portuguese and the lady got a big smile on her face and went on with even more Portuguese. Allison did a good job using her Spanish to help pick up on some phrases. Together we were a good team. Here's some fruit we bought!

Madeira Day 1- Nun's Valley

We arrived in Madeira about 10:30am and found a bus that would take us to Funchal the capital city. The bus driver was very helpful and dropped us off close to the hostel. The hostel was larger than we expected and seemed more like a hotel.

We picked up some tourist brochures at the airport and ended up using Madeira Happy Tours. At their office they recommended we join their afternoon tour to the Nun's Valley that was leaving in the next 15 min. We decided to go for it! The weather was beautiful and the views from up in the mountains helped us get a better feel for the island.

 The Bird of Paradise is the flower of Madeira. You see lots of terrace farming all over the island. They make use of as much land as they can. Lots of tunnels have been built to make travel across the island from one valley to the next shorter.

After the Nun's Valley we spent some time wandering around the area close to our hostel. We walked along the water, found an Asian restaurant for dinner that was quite yummy and finished our evening with a stop and Pingo Doce- the grocery store to stock up on food for our hike the next day.

Spring Break!

I was so excited to have my sister Allison come to visit me over my spring break week. She arrived Saturday morning. That afternoon we took the train into Lisbon and went to the Oceanarium. It's the largest aquarium in Europe. They had many different kinds of fish and marine life.

We decided to travel to Madeira, a small Portuguese island south west of Portugal and west of Africa. It was described to us as the Hawaii/Caribbean of Europe. Many people from all over Europe (Germany, England, Ireland, Netherlands) come for vacation. Because of this the island is very much a tourist spot and most people spoke English. We spent 4 days and 3 nights on the island. It was beautiful! Here are a few pictures. More details and pictures to come...