Back in December, we had a short one week cruise around the Canaries before the ship headed North to Madeira.
We got into Funchal early in the morning, we only had 10 or 11 hours to explore, so we used a phone app called "GetYourGuide" and we booked a brief trip in a mini bus.
We were picked up outside the CR7 museum (Christiano Ronaldo is a Madeira lad) and introduced ourselves to the variety of nationalities on the bus.
Funchal felt so different to the towns and cities of the Canaries and as we headed over to "Câmara de Lobos porto" we were immediately struck by how lush this small island is.
Obviously, it was a bit cooler 300 miles to the north of the Canaries, but the every changing clouds keeps it quite moist and tropical.
We stopped at the overly touristy viewing platform at Cabo Girão, it was over crowded and a bit "Meh" to be honest. It was fun looking down 580 metres below your feet on the glass platform, but we were keen to move onto somewhere more interesting.
We were last on the minibus that morning, so I managed to blag the front seat, I loved the views were going up windy hills, going through lots of tunnels and watching the weather change as we went around the island.
The roads looked like Scaletrix tracks as the wound round the steep hillsides, we could smell the clutch and brakes burning as we went up and down the hills in the old van.
We headed inland and uphill to the NorthWest of the island to the Fanal Forest.
We have seen some lovely photos of the old gnarly trees in the mist, so it was looking promising as we drove up through the eucalyptus trees onto a misty plateau at the top.
We didn't have long, so we made speed and headed into the forest.
The mist was already clearing by the time we got to the interesting trees, but we know we will be back there again, when we will spend a few hours there as the clouds come and go.
We headed to Riberia Da Janela on the NorthWest of the island, which offered lovely views of the rugged coast to the east.
We had a quick lunch at Seixal, making sure to try the Madeira bananas, we really like them, well tasty indeed 😄
We walked down to the promenade and we were glued to the views of big waves crashing into the shoreline.
We headed back to Funchal and had a lovely dinner at The Roxy, along with some proper Poncha (local rum with lots of citrus juice).
It was getting dark and it was time to fulfil my promise to Nadin.
A few weeks beforehand, she asked me if I wanted to go the the xmas lights in Glasgow or Funchal.
I'm a bit of a bah humbug guy, but it was an easy one to answer, Funchal anyday baby !
As we walked back to the ship after a few ponchas, we looked back and saw lights all the way up the hill, as well as lots of jellyfish lanterns along the port side.
I'm sorry Glasgow, you had no chance ;)
The day went by so quickly, but one thing we know for sure is that we will head back and do some exploring and take lots of photos on a future trip, Madeira is a special place.
