Madeira - Day 1-2

 On Saturday the 5th April, CBC and I set out for a mile trudge to our local station where we caught a train so we could then connect with the X30 bus to get to Stansted Airport to travel to Madeira. We travelled with Jet2 flights who were really good.  As I had made several bookings with Booking.com over the last 2 years, we qualified for a free private taxi to our hotel in Canico (which is good as public transport to there is a right pain, 1hour 40mins,  despite being only 7mins drive away) and arrived at our hotel, Sentido Galusol around 6.40pm. As we'd only booked 2 weeks before, there were limited choices left. 

We must have been upgraded as our hotel room seemed like a suite. It was enormous. Here was the main room. Behind me was more space with double wardrobes and then a separate entrance space with double wardrobes and console table, then a lounge with sofa, TV and coffee table as big as the bedroom, then a vast bathroom with double sinks, double shower and then a large balcony with sun loungers, table and 2 chairs with a view of the sea. 

As it was fairly late, we booked into our hotel's buffet dinner which was great. Lots of choices and tasty. I was tempted to go and use the hotel pool but decided that maybe half an hour to change, get in, get showered and dressed for dinner wasn't enough. It was a decision I'd regret... 

The next morning, we headed down for our breakfast buffet. Great choices again. Fresh fruit, breads, pastries, cooked choices, juices, cold meats and cheeses, salad, omelettes cooked to order etc. 

We decided to book a hire car as we would need it to access a lot of the walks we wanted to do. We arranged for one for Monday to Friday. As the day was Sunday, we decided we would get the bus to Funchal to explore there. The bus timetable was slightly ambiguous but suggested at least an hour wait so we decided to walk up the hill to Canico to explore. It was very hilly as all of Madeira is! 

We saw a vegetable market and people coming out of Church and then as he headed onwards, we saw a bus (more like a coach) the 2 headed to Funchal. It cost 5,50 euros for the pair of us, cash only. 

It was really quick. We arrived in Funchal and wandered around. There was some sort of Book fair on which we wandered around after a trip to the Tourist Office to pick up some walk guides and a map. 

After that, we bought an ice cream and wandered in this central park. It had beautiful plants and flowers and was teeming with tiny lizards on the warm rocks 

We decided to go and ride up the cable car to go and visit the Botanical Gardens. There was a brilliant Bohemian street where all the doors were uniquely painted

The Cable car was undeniably touristy with photos being taken of each gondola and its inhabitants but it serves a brilliant purpose of helping you to travel up high very quickly. Funchal is super steep so the walk would be simply hours. It was great to look out over houses, gardens, crevasses and all sorts. There are wild Nasturtiums growing absolutely everywhere! 

Arriving at the top, we paid to get into the Botanical gardens and were given a map. There was an art exhibition to see. 

We heard the distinct "Eeeowww!" of peacocks and soon came upon this fellow. 

The paths meandered up and down and we enjoyed all the greenery as well as flowers. 

There were several ornamental ponds. 

The gardens were divided into various zones.  We didn't explore the whole thing!

The scale of the place was amazing.

When we reached this pond, you could walk under the tunnels and walk around under the waterfalls- we got a little bit wet!

I've never seen Flamingos in real life before! It was astonishing how pink they are!

As well as this butterfly, I also saw a Swallowtail but didn't manage to photograph it!

After this, we stopped in a restaurant where CBC had a salad and beer and I had a cup of tea.   We took the cable car back down and decided we'd like to walk through Funchal to reach the seawater lido area where you can get nearer the water. We probably walked about 6 miles or so and then got a bus back

As we were walking, we'd spied a restaurant that said they served the traditional espetada skewers.  This was the food that we were most looking forward to as we used to have a wonderful Madeiran Skewer house in our local town which is much missed since it closed.  On our way back, we decided to go here for dinner.

We ordered a Bolo do Caco, the traditional yeasted flatbread made with sweet potato which was infused with garlic for Starter and then I ordered a Prawn Skewer and CBC ordered the Salmon skewer plus sides of buttery rice and garlicky fries and roasted veg.

When we had finished, we jumped on the bus back to the main area in Funchal.   Google did not have any up to date times when searching for bus times back to Canico and all the bus stops were very, very confusing.  We waited at one busstop and eventually a bus came which had been mentioned on Google. It didn't go near our hotel but went within a mile's walk so we got on. Curiously, all the bus drivers we met in Madeira sounded really British!

We got back to the hotel and had showers and went to bed ready for day 3, where we'd meet our hire car and then have some more adventures.

xx