My trip in the winter 17-18 had to be a short trip without too much pre-planning. It takes a long time to plan a trip for several months, so my next long journey will have to wait for the winter 2018 -2019.
My choice fell on Madeira, where I’ve never been and where the weather in February can be like a typical Danish summer day. That is what I had read and heard from others. I was of course looking forward to find out, if that was the case and fortunately, it turned out to be right most of the time.
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Lisbon
I was away for a month incl. a few days in Lisbon. The day I left home, there was snow on the trees, and the sun was out for the first time for several weeks, but it was great to get to Lisbon, where the sun was shining from a cloudless sky. The temperature was similar to a lovely spring day in Denmark. A bit cool in the shade, but lovely in the sun. I only had 2 days and thats not enough to see Lisbon. I should originally have had one more day, but one week before my departure, I was notified that my very early morning flight, was changed to late in the afternoon. Then one of my days disappeared. Since I would not be able see the city in two days, I choose to just relax on my first day. Walked around in the old town and at the harbor and just enjoyed the sun and the warm weather.
The following day I was a tourist. I took the famous tram 28 up through the very narrow streets, and I also took an open bus to Belem. I have been on a short visit to Lisbon earlier many years ago, but apart from the difference in height in the city and the many steep streets, there was not much I could remember, so nice to see the city again but to really see the city, I think I’ll go back soon and stay a little longer. This time Madera was my goal.
Lisbon Airport is not that far away from the city – fortunately – because when I arrived at the airport, the plane was delayed for later being completely canceled due to bad weather on Madeira. After a long time in the a queue, pickup of luggage and one more queues, we were taken by bus back to Lisbon. Installed with full board at a new hotel where we went to bed without knowing when we would move on. Early next morning I got a call that our bus would leave for the airport at. 9 a.m.
It was great until I reached check-in in the airport. My name was not listed for any planes. That meant I had to wait for departure until 7 p.m. I had access to a lounge, so I spent the day with a good book.
It was a long day and by then I thought the airline and airport had already filled up a little too much for this trip. It should get a lot worse, but more about that later.
My flight was fortunately on time, but it was not just dark when we reached Madeira. It was also very wet and windy. Arriving at the hotel I was told that the weather had been bad for the last couple of days, but it would be fine the next day and indeed. Next morning I woke up to a beautiful sunrise and a lovely day and had this weather almost every day for nearly 3 weeks. A few afternoons the weather got a little cooler and one afternoon we got rain. However, I learned that you should not trust the weather forecast in Madeira. It can change quickly and also be very different elsewhere on the island, but Funchal is great and my room had sun, from sunrise until about 3.p.m. which turned out to be the best part of the days, so when I did not have other plans, I enjoyed some lovely time in the sun here.
It was carnival the first week I visited, and there were various events in the city. A lot of people go there just for the carnival, but as I usually do not see anything when there are a lot of people, I just saw the dressed up people walking to and from the parades.
Funchal
Funchal is a lovely city with a relatively new and large marina, where you will find tourist boats, cruise ships and sailing boats. The marina was built after major floods and mudslides back in February 2010. With the new construction, it has been attempted to prevent something similar to happen again as much was destroyed and many people lost their lives. The city is like an amphitheater that encircles the marina, and as soon as you move away from the harbour area, the streets become steep. The area west of the city center on the way to the small town of Camara de Lobos is almost a city in the city. Here you find the hotels side by side along the coast. There are plenty of restaurants, and a large shopping center. From my balcony I could study crowds of people walking between the tourist area – called the Lido – and the old part of the city and the marina. It is a nice walk with a promenade without traffic along the Lido.
It’s easy to get around in the city, either with one of the many local buses, or you can take the open tourist buses that also take you to some of the surrounding areas. Among other things, a trip to Camara de Lobos, which is a very pittoresk little town with a small harbor. Here you will find colorful fishing boats and behind the city, there are terraces with banana plants. Definitely worth a visit.
An attraction that should also not be missed, is the fruit and vegetable market. It’s a beautiful building, and you can buy passion fruit. OK, they are expensive. You have to look out for and maybe ask in different stalls to find the best prices. Finally also taste the bread Bolo de Caco. it’s very good.
Monte
At the top of Funchal lies the small town of Monte. It is known for its church and the famous baskets, which are supposed to be the fastest way getting down. The fastest way up, is with the cablecar from Funchal. It’s a nice ride over the city’s roofs and with a great view of the city and can be highly recommended. Once getting out of the cable car, you will find an entrance to the Tropical Garden. It is located on the slope around Monte Palace. In the garden you can study panels with art, a museum, basin with carps in addition to many exotic plants and trees. There is also a nice lake in the middle of the garden. If you want to save energy, you can get up and down with a golf car from the lake or from the square at the entrance in front of the cafe / restaurant.
From Monte you can take another cable car down to the Botanical Garden. It is also located on terraces on a slope with nice views of the city. You can also reach the garden by bus or car. It’s another lovely garden, and especially the patterned multicolored hedges looks great at this time of year, where there are not so many blooming flowers.
Excursions from Funchal
Madeira has much more to offer than Funchal, but in February it’s probably where, the weather is the best. Many tourists go to Madeira for the Levada walks. Trails that follow the islands water channels, and there are many of them. Although the likelihood of getting lost is small when following the water channels, the trails are not harmless. It is important to have good footwear and be caution as they can be very muddy. They are narrow, and in some places the slopes are very steep. I was not there to do Levada walks, but I went on a short trip as part of one of my excursions and my experience was exactly as described above.
The island’s tourist companies all have the same trips from Funchal. East, West, South, North and Central. However, you do not need to do all of them as they overlap. You get to the north with both the east and the west trip. Today the distances are small, as the island is now to quote my guide “like a cheese with holes”. After Portugal joined the EU, a lot of money has been spent on infrastructure, and many tunnels have been built through the mountains. This means that no matter where on the island you live, you can work in Funchal or somewhere else on the island.
To see as much of the island as possible, I chose off road Jeep tours, and here we got a real impression of how it was to get around before the tunnels were built. Very narrow roads with lots of steps to the houses build either above or below the roads. We saw many of the houses below the road, with a garage or parking space on the roof. There where a lot of beautiful and well-kept houses, and when you think how difficult it is to be a farmer, everything was incredibly well maintained. The main occupation of the island is either tourism or farming – crops like bananas, sugar cane, fruit and vegetables are grown on small plateaus. It’s impossible to get machines on these platforms, so everything is done by hand. In addition, a lot of stairs must be climbed every day to get back and forth. Impressive.
I took the tours east, west and central. The last being the tour to the valley of the Nuns. With these tours, I came across the island, and could see the change of character and plantation depending on where you were. However, the Eucalyptus trees are on most of the island.
We visited Porto Monitz, known for its natural swimming pools. We visited Santana, which is known for the special triangular houses. We drove across the island, where there on the top was a very flat landscape. We were as mentioned on one Levada walk (the other was canceled as the road getting there was closed because of all the rain). We spent a lot of time admiring the coastal rock formations, including the narrow part to the east. We drove on many steep and narrow roads and got a lot of very different views of the island. We visited a rom distillery. Rom is used to create the local punch, which is typically made of orange and lemon, but can be tasted with many different fruits. However, I learned that you NEVER have to buy it in bottles. Puncha must be freshly prepared.
They were all great tours, and I was pretty lucky with the weather. The first day it was on top, the second trip was a bit wet. It was the trip to the Nuns Valley, where you probably always have shade, cool weather and a little wet, but it was good ok for us to see the valley. (The name of the Nuns Valley is because the women fled to the valley to avoid the pirates many many years ago). My third trip was supposed to start with a trip up to Pico de Areiro the highest point on the island by car. Even though the weather in Funchal was fine, we had to give up on the top. We could not see anything at all. The rest of the trip was less weather dependent and it was another great tour.
Going home
The last week on the island the weather became very mixed. We had a couple of the warmest days, but also days when it stormed and rained heavily so going out was not really possible. The bad weather also influenced my return trip. I had to fly a little before 12 o’clock on a Wednesday and once I arrived at the airport, I could see that the plane was canceled. When I finally got some information, my return trip was postponed for 2 days. Most of the other guests did leave Madeira the following day but we also needed seats for our connecting flight so they preferred to let us stay on Madeira. Once again I was taken to a new hotel. We were a total of 7 Danes, and almost the only ones left we ended up being a small family, Friday morning we were supposed to be picked up already at 3.30 and we were all ready at the front desk. After 5 min where the car did not arrive, we started to check our phones, and unfortunately we could see that our flight was canceled. Then the hotel receptionist got busy calling around to get us rebooked and we ended up with a new booking for the following day before going back to bed again.
Next day the meeting time was 6.30, and this time we were picked up on time. At the airport we were checked in, but when we reached the departure gate we were told that the plane could not get down. After a couple of delays we once again got the message – your flight is canceled. Once again I had to go back to pick up my luggage and then back for a new check in. I kind of knew the procedure by now.
It is a shame for Madeira that they have so many issues with flights not being able to get down. The runway is actually located in the water along the coast, so there is a lot of wind and of course they can’t take chances.
Although we were all fine and knew that it was very cold in DK, it was by now getting a little too much. Although I had been away for a long time, I found that the time I had spent in airports, airline queues etc. was enough for this trip and by coincidence and luck, a few of us managed to get the last seats on the only plane leaving the island that day. It had arrived the night before and was supposed to have left already 5.30 a.m. It did not leave until 11 and luckily with us on board and we did not have any weather problems taking off. Our connecting flight was not until 6 p.m., and it left with about 30 min delay, so finally Saturday evening at 11 p.m. I was home.
I could subsequently read that the airline offered to change flight without any cost to everybody with tickets for the 5 days with bad weather. Honestly if they had asked me, if I would stay until I could definitely go home the answer would have been yes. I did not mind 5 days extra, but when you everyday think you are leaving and have to get up in the middle of the night for no reason, it’s not so funny.
The positive thing – I met some lovely people and we had some nice days together. Some of the time the weather was nice too, but we also got some huge rain showers as well as thunder and lightning. I went down to the coast where I could watch some huge waves. A lot had been destroyed the previous day by the storm. Huge plants and soil lay scattered around, and they were doing a major cleanup.
A week in Madeira with this weather is not good, but since I had had nearly 3 weeks with almost only good weather, the bad days were acceptable. I had a wonderful month in Madeira and I was very pleased to escape the extremely cold weather in Denmark
Even in February without the many flowers blooming, Madeira is a beautiful and exciting island.
Link Portugal Photos
This entry was posted in Destinations, Europe, Madeira, Portugal
