Welcome to Madeira, discovered in 1419, an archipelago of 4 islands, in the Atlantic off the coast of Africa, owned by Portugal.
Our flight was good and the landing not as scary as I had imagined after seeing pictures of the airport. Our rental car was delivered to the airport by MadPoint and we were off to find our home in Lombo do Doutor. GPS equipped but we still managed a couple wrong turns which can be a real pain here as some of the roads are very steep and narow and turning around is a challenge. From the airport we were on the freeway the whole time. It passes through Funchal above the city, so traffic is not a factor. The freeway has tunnels everywhere, I think we went through at least 15 or more just on our short drive.
https://www.tropicalrentmadeira.com/product/casa-felix/
We made it to our HomeAway rental Casa Felix with a little help from locals giving us direction and met the owner Celia. After a welcome and quick tour of the house, she left us to settle in. The pictures of the house on HomeAway were definitly accurate and Celia gave us a welcome package of traditional cake, wine, fresh eggs, local bananas, and passionfruit – locally grown. The house is gorgeous and the view amazing. We can even hear the surf which will be nice for sleeping.
We drove to a supermarket to stock up – about a 5 minute drive. The market has validated parking if you are 1 hour or less and because they sell liquor in the markets we got everything we needed in the one store.
Back at Casa Felix we unloaded, then prepped for our dinner, started the BBQ, and settled by the pool with glass of wine in hand. After a long day of travel it felt so good to have a swim and shake off the fog. We sat out and watched the sun go down, then started dinner. A neighborhood cat (Chris has named him Tinto) decided to visit after smelling the burgers (just a wild guess) and lay on our deck until we went in to eat. I wonder if he will be a regular visitor?
