Funchal; Sunday, 10 April, 2016

With an OK breakfast inside me I headed out into town and walked along the sea front to the Cable Car station. From there I took the cable car up to the Monte area, high above the city centre and then walked the short distance to the second cable car of the morning to catch that halfway back down a different hill to the Botanical Gardens.

The journeys both underlined how rugged but also lush a landscape Madeira has, with steep volcanic hills and valleys, all covered in vegetation – where man hasn’t engineered enough of a flat space to build on.

The botanical gardens fall away down the side of the hill heading back towards the sea, and the views over the city centre and the sea were stunning. I stopped at a café halfway down the hill for a late morning coffee and to take in the views.

Having looked round the gardens, which took most of the morning, I caught the cable car back up to its top station and wandered the short distance back to Monte, pausing there for lunch in a café by the cable car station to take in the views and have a chicken omelette that I was later to regret.

Lunch completed I headed over to the Monte Palace tropical gardens, again located on the steep terrace of a hill these gardens cling to the terraces with a mixture of Portuguese and Oriental themes throughout the gardens. At the lowest point of the gardens is a small café again with stunning views, this time with the added benefit of a free sample of Madeira wine.

It’s a long hard slog back up the terraces to the top of the garden, though that was made significantly easier through the use of the buggy service that for €2 will zip you to the top in around 10 minutes, passing lots of exhausted looking people on the way up.

Back up at the top I walked round to the Monte church, famous as the final resting place of the last Habsburg King, who was exiled to Madeira at the end of WWI and died here shortly afterwards.

The second Sunday after Easter is the date of the Madeiran Flower Festival, a fact I’d only discovered from the commentary on the open-top bus the previous day, so with the main festivities kicking off in under an hours’ time I headed back to the cable car station and made my way back down to the sea front to take in the parade.

By the time I got down to the seafront there was already quite a crowd present, with the spectators a couple of rows deep the whole way along the parade route, but by careful manoeuvring I was able to get into a space where I could take in much of the parade and get some photos.

Having watched the parade, I headed into the old town area for a quick drink to contemplate dinner, but I was still feeling quite full from lunch so in the end I decided to wander back to the hotel for a bit and then head out later for dinner, a choice I was very glad off as back at the hotel it became clear that the not so pleasant chicken omelette had a reason for not being so pleasant.