With a mild climate all year round, the air on the spectacular island of Madeira is sweet with the scent of flowers and fennel. The Bond’s holiday village of Encosta Cabo Girão is way up on a sea cliff some eight miles from the capital, Funchal. There are panoramic views across the valley to the capital and out to sea.
The Cabo Girão viewpoint, just 100 yards from the HPB village, is a skywalk incorporating a suspended glass platform situated on the highest promontory in Europe at an elevation of 580 m.giving a vertiginous view of the fajãs of Rancho and Cabo Girão – small areas of cultivated land at the foot of the cliff – as well as magnificent further panoramic views over the ocean and the municipalities of Câmara de Lobos and Funchal.
As the photos will show there is variable weather on Madeira, although blue sky looks more like a summer holiday and so there is a lot more of that in my pics. The island is only 22km wide and yet there are 20 micro climates! Go round the corner and the weather has changed. And going round the corner is not a simple stroll as most of the roads seem to be 1 in 3 with a hairpin bend every few hundred yards. There are many footpaths but these also rise and fall in a measure which cannot now be attempted by those of diminished puff. There are, however, the levadas - more of which later.
HPB runs a shuttle to Camara and Funchal - 15 minutes or so. There is also a public service bus, somewhat fewer than one an hour, and it takes an hour to and fro, going round the villages.
The cruise liners tie up at Funchal and disgorge thousand upon thousand of sightseers. Many aim for the toboggan ride - down the public roads. A left over from the transport of yesteryear when they went a full 5k into the city market.
Others wander the town or take a TucTuc to see the sights.
Back on board by 1800 allowing the locals to contine their liquid festival.
We made a couple of weekday trips to puff up the cobbled streets visiting the odd museum etc. Both Sundays we went to the English Church.
Funchal Cathedral - very plain outside. One museum visit showed us what used to happen in the cathedral on Holy Thursday. An altar - which reached from ground to roof, was built in front of the permanent one. This relief of the Last Supper was part of it. Fairly standard, perhaps, apart from Judas at the end.
The fort is largely an exhibition although the attendants are serving army personnel.
Festivals are held somewhere every weekend and Funchal had a 10 day wine festival while we were there.
The street decorations in Camara de Lobos were celebrating some ugly looking elongated fish with big teeth - the flying black fish. Why umbrellas and airplanes? Who knows?
There were also tours organised by HPB in a 12 seater, although we did one trip with only 2 others. That is how we accessed all the places for which we have pics.
These shots are from the trip to Nuns' Valley
Trip to the West
Trip to the East
Walking the levada
The Levadas supply water for irrigation and other purposes. They are shallow channels starting high up and gradually descending over a distance as much as 50k with many tunnels carved - and more recently, blasted through the mountain sides. They are bounded by a level path used for maintenance. Being smooth and with a very slight incline they were perfect for the enfeebled to walk. Until the one of us who still had a plaster cast on the arm decided to trip over a worm cast (we couldn't see anything else) and land one arm and one leg on the path and the others in the levada.
