We were on a winter cruise around the Canaries and Medeira, the highlight for us again was Madeira. It is lush compared the the dry rocky islands of the Canaries.
We hired a taxi driver for the day and spent a lot of time going around all but the East of the Island.
We were hoping to get some misty conditions at Funchal, but it was blue skies and some unusual things. It's getting too popular now and most of the interesting trees are now fenced off. I understand it is being done to protect the Fanal Forest, but it's still sad to see. Obviously we are part of the problem (it's very popular with photographers and Instagram seekers), but there were lots of wet wipes lying around and many branches were lying on the ground off the trees. They will be fencing off more of the trees soon and there will be an entry charge at some point.
We could have spent hours photographing the waves on the North side, but we were on a short trip to cover as much as we could. The same day, four tourists were swept away to their deaths from sea pools on the west of Tenerife. The pools were closed, but they ignored the signs and found out the hard way about the power of nature.
We want to go back for a proper stay in Maderia, to get more time to take it in.
