How is Madeira in January? And where to stay?
 

We (a couple around 30y) are thinking of going to Madeira for one week in January. We have never been there before. It really looks beautiful - but we are quite unsure about of how the weather will be?
We have been many times to the Canary Islands in January. I guess we can't expect the same amount of sunshine/temperatures on Madeira compared to Gran Canaria? But still it would be warm compared to the winter in Northern Europe.
Can anyone advise us about going to Madeira in January?

And we don't really know where to live on the island. Would you recommend to live in Funchal or would be better to find a quiet place/small town at coast.
All recommendations are welcome

We were there last January (2014) from the 14th to the 21st; the weather was 60's, maybe 70's. The forecast on weather.com looked like rain everyday, but the ominous cartoon on their website meant an occasional freshening sprinkle, and the rest of the time stark sunshine, with some rainbows. In other words, the weather was wonderful.

We were super happy with the Duas Torres, a high-rise hotel, with great balcony views, directly across from a shopping center with grocery store, a car rental place two blocks away, on the bus line from the airport (but airport cab/shuttle was a good price anyways); we took the bus into the center of Funchal from there, rented a car for a day, and took a pre-arranged tour another day; the hotel was incredible value.

Pictures of the trip are here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dougla...7640336903094/

Thanks a lot for your reply - your information is really useful. And the pictures look really good.