It was an early start, I was at Gatwick Airport by 6am. I parked the car at a local hotel and they drove me to the terminal.

At the airport, I wandered around the shops, and our flight was delayed by about 30 minutes. The flight was completely full, and I was sitting between a Portuguese man and an English man. Towards the end of the flight, we got chatting, and the Portuguese guy, Santos, is originally from Madeira and was coming home to visit his family. The English guy and his wife have bought a house in Madeira and stay there for a few months every year. So I managed to get a few tips from them both.

I got a photo of Porto Santo, an island just off Madeira, as we came in to land.

Nicola managed to get a photo of Madeira which shows the very short landing strip!

I was one of the first off the plane, and as I only had hand luggage, I went through customs really quickly. The airport itself was pretty quiet.

At Funchal airport, I was met by a prearranged driver, although he was a bit late, so I had to message the accommodation to chase him.

The hotel we are staying in is around a 25-minute drive from the airport, and even in that short drive, you could see how hilly Madeira is.

We are staying at Caso do Caseiro, it’s a really lovely hotel with just 8 rooms. It’s about midway up a very steep, long hill and has a pool and gardens. The owner is really nice and welcoming, too.

Some views from the room we are staying in.

After I had unpacked and eaten something, I decided to walk up the hill to the nearest supermarket, around 10 minutes away – these hills are steep!

I took some photos of the views, looking down into Funchal and up to the top of the hill.

I passed the church of Livramento (deliverance). It’s quite ugly but has a very tall tower.

There were some really pretty flowers on the walk there, too.

Nicola arrived about 3 hours after me, so once she gad arrived and unpacked we sat on our little balcony and caught up over a bottle of wine.

We then decided to walk down to Funchal – it’s around a 30-minute walk and pretty much all downhill. We walked past lots of pretty trees, which we later found out were called tooth trees. When they break, the branches release a white latex that can irritate the skin and mucous membranes.

As we came into Funchal, we walked past HMBorges, one of the famous madeira wineries.

As we walked into the city centre, we passed the courts of justice.

We carried on to Municipal Square, which is paved with dark and light Batistini tiles in a wave pattern.

We wandered around for a bit before deciding on somewhere to eat. There was a lot of choice, but we decided on a place because the waitress was very friendly. We had the local garlic bread (Bolo) to start and scabbard fish and bananas as the main.

As it was a very long steep hill back home, we decided to get the bus back. There was a nice piece of street art just opposite the bus stop.

The bus stop we got off at meant we had to walk down the hill where the toboggans go – you could see the road was very shiny!

On the way back to the hotel, we were greeted by a very chilled dog.

We were both fairly tired, so we were in bed around 11pm.