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Saturday - 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, I was aware that it was hilly/mountainous and was expecting something much along the lines of the Canary Islands (Madeira being only a few hundred miles north of there). However, 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 simultaneously. 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.
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