Have some Madeira M'Dear
Jan 21st, 2016, 02:19 PM
#1
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Have some Madeira M'Dear
Looks like a week in August. Anyone been? Any suggestions about accommodation? Weather? Activities such as cultural stuff, beaches, walks, restaurants. No driving, local buses hopefully. All ideas welcome!
Jan 21st, 2016, 02:40 PM
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Have not been in years but enjoyed the levada walks and it will be impossible to avoid the ugliest fish in the world espada.
http://madeiraisland.com/eng/madeira...s/espada_fish/
http://madeiraisland.com/eng/madeira...s/espada_fish/
Jan 21st, 2016, 06:27 PM
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Jan 21st, 2016, 11:56 PM
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I spent a week there last February.
I'm no expert on accommodation. We had the use of a friend-of-a-friend's timeshare studio in the Regency Palace hotel, which was OK, decor a little dated perhaps. Funchal has spread out along the coast, with apartment blocks and standard-style hotels clinging to the cliffs. Local buses in and around Funchal are good, English is very widely spoken.
We took a couple of walking tours, to the "25 Fountains" and Ponta de Sao Lourenco (bus pick-up from the hotel), which were great, but once you have visited the art museum and cathedral in Funchal, and the main sets of gardens (which you can reach by cable car as well as bus), that's about it apart from more inland scenery. It's a volcanic island, so beaches aren't really the thing. A week is about right.
February weather was like an English spring, and I would think August would be pretty hot, and it's very close to the equator, so the sun would be powerful too.
http://autolycus-london.blogspot.co..../label/Madeira
I'm no expert on accommodation. We had the use of a friend-of-a-friend's timeshare studio in the Regency Palace hotel, which was OK, decor a little dated perhaps. Funchal has spread out along the coast, with apartment blocks and standard-style hotels clinging to the cliffs. Local buses in and around Funchal are good, English is very widely spoken.
We took a couple of walking tours, to the "25 Fountains" and Ponta de Sao Lourenco (bus pick-up from the hotel), which were great, but once you have visited the art museum and cathedral in Funchal, and the main sets of gardens (which you can reach by cable car as well as bus), that's about it apart from more inland scenery. It's a volcanic island, so beaches aren't really the thing. A week is about right.
February weather was like an English spring, and I would think August would be pretty hot, and it's very close to the equator, so the sun would be powerful too.
http://autolycus-london.blogspot.co..../label/Madeira
Jan 22nd, 2016, 02:14 AM
#6
If you're not driving then you need to stay in Funchal IMO, to have access to lots of different restaurants and the cable car. You haven;t given a budget so I'm shooting in the dark, but the hotel we recently stayed in was the Porto Santa Maria. Nice hotel, good food, right by the cable car terminus. It's also next to the restaurant area of the old town with lots of choice. I tend to avoid the Estrada Monumental hotels, they're newish and too far out of Funchal for a stroll at night without catching a cab.
Driving is not a problem on Madeira, so if you can do it, then do it and you'll see lots of the island with hardly a soul about.
Walking is as IMDonehere says, very enjoyable along the old irrigation channels up in the hills, the Levadas. The scenery is spectacular and not too strenuous on the feet and legs. See the gardens up at Monte (via cable car) and if you can get to the north coast it's well worth it.
Driving is not a problem on Madeira, so if you can do it, then do it and you'll see lots of the island with hardly a soul about.
Walking is as IMDonehere says, very enjoyable along the old irrigation channels up in the hills, the Levadas. The scenery is spectacular and not too strenuous on the feet and legs. See the gardens up at Monte (via cable car) and if you can get to the north coast it's well worth it.
