Island of Flowers in the Atlantic - Madeira

After arriving in Madeira, the car rental adventure began. At first, we thought we could pick up the rental car at the counter as usual, but unfortunately, we couldn't find a counter for the rental company. Eventually, we found a single man with a sign, far away from the counters of the other companies. He actually had our rental car. The car looked fine on the outside, but it had already covered a lot of kilometers, and as we noticed when starting the engine, the check engine light was constantly on. Nevertheless, we went on our way to the hotel, and during the drive, we realized that the car had too little horsepower. The highways in Madeira have gradients of over 10%, and on the ramps, there is hardly any space to accelerate or even a stop sign. With a felt 30 horsepower, you obviously won't win the race...

But we managed to reach our hotel in Funchal with the car. The first two days in Madeira were very humid, so we initially only used a shuttle service from the hotel and explored Funchal a bit. It is blooming in every corner.

The Parque de Santa Catarina is located above the coastal roads and offers a beautiful view and, of course, various blooming plants.

The next day, we went hiking, but due to the very poor signage of the trails, we didn't find our way properly. Nevertheless, we had a beautiful view of the green valleys of the island at times. The hiking trails consisted mostly of stairs, so the ascent was quite exhausting in the end.

The next day was very rainy. We actually thought that it would rain less in the afternoon and took a trip to the Botanical Garden of Funchal. First, we had to climb steeply on foot from the harbor to the garden. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the garden, the weather let us down. The roads in Madeira often looked like this:

The next day, the weather didn't let us down anymore, and we drove to the eastern tip of Madeira for a hike.

The landscape there is very barren, and it was very windy that day. We had a good view of the airport, where the planes couldn't land for a while, and when they finally tried, they shook so much that they had to abort the landing just before touchdown. The area there was a total contrast to the rest of the island we had seen so far. But since the rocks there have very different colors, the hike was by no means boring.

Our next hike took us to the Risco Waterfall and the Levada das 25 Fontes. Even the journey to the starting point with our super car was an experience in itself, as we had to go into the mountains, which means steep uphill driving, as always, but this time so steep that we had to drive in first gear the whole time...

After we arrived, we were rewarded with beautiful nature. At times, the nature seemed like something out of a fairy tale, as the paths were completely overgrown and besides the path, crystal-clear levadas flowed. The signage of the route was poor again, with only one sign at the beginning and one at the end. Fortunately, there were quite a few other hikers there, so it was not easy to get lost.

On the last day, we took the cable car in Funchal to Monte Station to visit the beautiful tropical garden there. From there, you can also take a ride downhill in a toboggan if you like.

Travel period: October 2014

Accommodation: Pestana Grand Hotel