Ponta Delgada; Thursday, 23 May, 2019

I had a half days’ leave so after powering down my laptop I grabbed my bags and headed for Gatwick.

A smooth journey down to and through the airport and onto the plane where we promptly sat for quite some time as one of our fellow passengers, who had put luggage in the hold, failed to turn up. After about 15 minutes they finally found the bag and pulled it out so we were ready to go.

The flight down to Madeira went well with a calm approach and landing onto the notoriously difficult runway. I’d pre-booked at taxi to take me down to my hotel for the night and as I emerged into the arrivals hall I was able to spot a man holding up a name board with my name on it.

This was the second attempt to get to the Azores, but at least the abandoned trip of the previous year had let me explore more of Madeira and so I’d booked a hotel in Machico, pretty much just off the end of the runway, which meant less than 10 minutes after leaving the airport I was sat in my hotel room looking out at the sea.

After freshening up I went for a little wander around the town, along the sea front and up the small river to the heart of the town and it’s church and town hall. I headed back down the main street towards the sea front and stopped at a very nice fish restaurant overlooking the small fort that sits back from the sea front for dinner.

I had a very filling dinner and then headed back to the hotel to turn in for the night.