Madeira We’d been planning to visit Madeira for years. Finally we had gotten round to it. Yay!
Pestana Saturday - We arrived at the Pestana Promenade Hotel in the west of Funchal after a pleasant(ish) flight with TAP (Portugal's version of BA) and a relatively short drive from the airport in our hire car.Having had a look at maps of Madeira before we arrived, we were aware that it was hilly/mountainous and were expecting something much along the lines of the Canary Islands (Madeira being only a few hundred miles north of there). However, it turned out that Madeira is hilly in the extreme. There is barely a 200 yard stretch of road on the entire island where you're not either going up a steep hill, down a steep hill, or round a sharp corner. And often you're doing more than one of these things at the same time. This is even the case when you're driving on Madeira's only motorway! This would be a challenging driving environment under normal circumstances, but is even more so when you've been presented with a manual hire car with the steering wheel on the opposite side to the one you're used to.
Reception Due to the fact that the hotel is built on a steep hillside (as is virtually everything in Madeira), the hotel's reception is, more or less, on the top floor. This means that people only really need to come to or through reception when they're checking in or out. This gives it a strangely deserted feel, as shown in the photo. Keeps it nice and neat and tidy though.
Room Having checked in, we checked out the view from our balcony, which was quite nice.As we'd not arrived at the hotel until the early evening, we limited our exploring to a bit of a walk around the local area and had dinner in a fabulous pizza restaurant on the promenade.
Pico do Arieiro Sunday - Just to ease ourselves into the bonkers driving, we decided that our first trip should be to the highest point on the island - Pico do Arieiro. As the crow flies, it was about 9 miles from the hotel, but almost 6,000 feet (1,818m) above sea level.This was the view of the radar station that's located right at the top.
Closed There were a few walks that start out from Pico do Arieiro. Unfortunately, this sign advised us that the trails were currently closed.It’s curious that the French word for “danger” also appears to be “danger”. Maybe this is an example of the creeping Englification of their language that annoys the French so much?
Or Not However, the fact that the trail was closed didn't appear to be stopping any of these intrepid walkers from venturing out anyway. Perhaps they didn't speak any of the five languages on the sign? Nice view though.
Lizard There were loads and loads and loads of these little lizards all over the place, sitting around in the sunshine.
Inquisitive They were clearly not unduly afraid of people though, as this one demonstrated by trying to have a nibble on Judith's toe a couple of seconds after this photo was taken. She was not pleased.
View This was Judith walking to one of the view points at Pico do Arieiro. There are lots of opportunity to look at the top of clouds in Madeira.
View Here's Judith sitting at the view point looking east towards the Ponta de Sao Lourence, the peninsula at the eastern end of Madeira, which is just about visible through the haze almost 20 miles away.
Hiking Across the valley, on maximum zoom I could just about make out these hikers, mainly due to the fact that one of them was wearing a red shirt.
Hiking Zooming out, you can appreciate the position they had managed to get themselves into. The previous photo occupies a space approximately the size of a postage stamp, right in the middle of this photo. Good effort on their part to get into such an impressively remote spot.
Machio Having left Pico do Arieiro, we headed towards Ponta de Sao Lourence, which we could see from the view point earlier. On the way we stopped at this view point overlooking the town of Machico. The red tile roofs and whitewashed walls give the towns a very tidy and well maintained look, which is nice.
Ponta de Sao Lourence This was the view from near the start of the walking trail, looking down the south side of the peninsula. The other end of the trail is more or less on top of the peak on the right. It didn't look that far from here, but it was pretty hot and there was no shade at all between here and there.
Ferry The ferry to Porto Santo passed in front of the Ilhas Desertas on its way back to Funchal (they're called the Deserted Isles because no-one lives there). It would have been nice to have had the time to get the ferry to Porto Santo, if only to see the sandy beaches, which are almost completely absent from Madeira itself (there is one at Prainha). However, there was too much to see and do on Madeira to squeeze a trip in this time round.
Cliffs After a couple of miles I'd gone far enough to get a look at the impressive sea cliffs on the north side of the peninsula.
Rocks The 100-foot tall black rock pyramid on the left is famous for something or other. Can't remember what though.
Peninsula I had now walked far enough for there to be quite a good view looking back along the peninsula.
Ascent Approaching the end of the trail, I could see walkers ascending and descending the final slope.
Ascent Looking at the bigger picture, the ascent is slightly more arduous than the previous picture might have led you to believe. Still, at least someone had the bright idea of planting a few trees at the bottom to provide a tiny bit of lovely shade. If you call ahead, you can actually stay overnight in that little hut. I'm not entirely sure why you'd want to (apart from maybe to get a nice view of the stars), but there you go. It's there if you want it.
Then End At the top of the hill the trail ended, but you can get a clear view of how far you still are from the end of the peninsula, which is still a couple of miles away.
Madeira Looking back along the peninsula, I could see the whole of Madeira (although there was a bit missing from the photo on the right as my wide-angle lens was not quite wide enough to get the whole thing in in one go).I could just about make out Pico do Arieiro, where we were a few hours ago, just right of centre, where the line of the mountains starts to go rather wiggly (in a big “W”).
Pico do Arieiro Zooming in as far as I could, you can just about make out the radar dome and radio mast at the left end of the “W”.
HDR On the way back to the car, I fired off a HDR shot, just to see how it came out. It's certainly emphasised the colour and texture of the cliffs.
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