Madeira Day Trip

The economy of Madeira relying very heavily on tourism there were lots of trip on offer, or I should say there were lots of companies offering basically the same two excursions; they all went from Funchal and went either west or east. It was a bit of a toss up for us as to which one we took, but inthe event we took the Western one, mainly because it was on a slightly more convenient day. They both looked as interesting as one another. We could of course have booked to walk a levada, which is a huge thing, but we hadn't brought boots and it wasn't 3eally warm enough for me to contemplate walking for six hours. Or anything enough really. Six hours is a long time to be walking. 

We were picked up at the hotel by a minibus and the driver proceeded to collect the rest of the passengers. These turned out to be; a morose Finnish couple with whom I tried in vain to strike up a conversation, a young couple of indeterminate origin, possibly Italian, who exchanged not a word with anyone but one another, and  a late middle aged couple of English women who never stopped talking and were always last (and late) back to the minibus when we stopped. 

We didn't get told by our driver/guide much about the history of Madeira in general or the places that we went to in particular so a lot of the time we were looking at places we knew nothing about. 'Lovely small village with interesting church' was about as lyrical as he waxed, unless he was talking about what he had said a few weeks ago to the Minister for Tourism and what the Minister for Tourism had said back to him. He also took time out to report a small travelling funfair which we encountered in one of the 'nice small towns' and which he seemed to think was compromising the electricity supply. I suspect if the Minister for Tourism sees him approaching he ducks under his desk ....

But the scenery was beautiful, although I found the mountain roads  a bit too high and narrow for my comfort some of the time. And here, naturally, are some photos. 

I took loads, but these give a flavour of the day.