Arriving in Madeira we spend the first few hours at the Whale Museum while waiting and hoping for a message from the AirBnB that it is ready early. We asked them if it is possible to check in early, versus the 4 PM check in time and are quite happy when at 12PM they announce that we can check in. Now the only problem is finding the AirBnB in Funchal in the middle of the mostly pedestrian zone. But we are well prepared and after a bit of playing around with the twenty keys provided make our way into the surprisingly small but luckily empty parking.
The apartment is quite neat with no noisy neighbors, a small balcony and is located in a perfect location to explore Funchal and Madeira in the next days.
Our first goal is to explore the Monte Botanical Gardens before they close and start on foot towards the cable car station which will take us up into the mountains to Monte and the Botanical Gardens. The walk is quite beautiful as we pass a small creek which is well walled to protect against flash floods.
We can see the cable car above us and now we can follow the cars at least for some time towards the bottom station. The area here is a bit less maintained, likely due to flash floods that impacted the island and Funchal in 2010.
Most of the city seems to have been renovated and looks completely new but there are houses which seem to be demolished behind the walls so it is quite a mix in the downtown area as we make our way to the cable station and then take the cable car to Monte, described in a separate post.
Returning from Monte we descend the cable car and now it is time to look for a place to eat dinner. We really want some traditional Madeiran food and what could be better than a restaurant named “O Regional” in the middle of the tourist area?
Surprisingly really it is quite good. we order multiple specialties like Bolo do Caco, a flatbread served with garlic butter in most cases, scabbardfish and fried banana and Portuguese steak. And we drink the traditional honey and sugar cane rum cocktail called Poncha, quite an adventure for us.
We then decide to walk off the food by exploring the city a bit more. In this case we follow the ocean enjoying the great views and the rocky beaches, this is not the place with the best beaches really.
Our turn around point is the Sao Tiago Fort that protected the city from pirates and enemy countries. It is quite beautiful from a distance even though we cannot enter it today as we have to return back to the AirBnB.
We return via one of the major tourist streets, Rua de Santa Maria. It is quite beautiful and in addition famous for the many painted doors, part of an art project to make the street more attractive.
We continue looking at the many painted doors and enjoy the free art gallery as we slowly make our way back towards the AirBnB.
As we approach the AirBnB the street becomes more and more busy and then we start passing through al fresco seating for many restaurants including, to our surprise, the one where we ate. Who knew it had seating on two streets? And then we are back at the AirBnB for a short while before going out to buy provisions for the following days and then returning to fall asleep, tired after a very long and busy day.
