It has been quiet some time since my last longer trip abroad. Given the uncertainties around Covid, I decided to not take chances and as such to only look into travel in the forth quarter and to stay within the boundaries of the European Union. With that, choices were kind of limited due to the usual weather across Europe in November – and I ended up, picking Madeira as my destination.

Well – and now things got started – and today was the first full day of the trip – featuring a full day tour of Funchal.

We made it by bus to the terminal of the Funchal Cable Car for a trip over the city and up to the village of Monte – a suburb of Funchal sitting about 700m above sea level – featuring great views over town and the Atlantic.

We made our way past the starting point of the traditional tobogan / basket sleigh rides to Livramenta (albeit without the time for a trip) and up to Igreja Paroquial de Nossa Senhora do Monte.

After a visit of the church and enjoying the views, we made it back to the cable car station – to start our walk to the Botanical Garden – first following the Caminho Rev. Padre Eugénio Borgonov, then continuing along the Levada dos Tornos – for a final knee-breaking steep descent (a 300m elevation loss for a distance of 1km) to the Botanical Garden.

Needless to say the cafe of the botanical was a welcome stop – with plenty of time available for a self-guided visit of the garden.

A public bus got us from the garden back to downtown Funchal – the Mercado dos Lavradores (farmers’ market) being the next stop – with another opportunity for explorations. Unfortunately – our visit being in the afternoon – the most interesting section (fish and seafood) was already sold out and in the process of being cleaned up (I made it back two weeks later in the morning though).

We continued with a tour of downtown – heading for the cathedral and closing with a basic Madeira tasting in Blandy’s Wine Lodge (another place, to get back to later – for a more in depth introduction to Madeira wines).