Honeymoon in Madeira

Marlene and I have been in Madeira almost a week now, we return to Vienna on Friday. I'll try to give a quick rundown for what we've done so far.

Tuesday, Aug 3
We departed from the Vienna airport at 8:20 then had a several hour layover in Nürnberg where we did a little bit of shopping and watched How to Train Your Dragon on my iPod. We later arrived in Madeira after a fairly choppy landing at about 4 o'clock. There was a guy waiting for us with our names on a sheet of paper (I've never had this service before!) and then we boarded a shuttle bus that brought us to the hotel. We unpacked and enjoyed a complimentary bottle of champagne that was given to us since we told the receptionist that we were celebrating our honeymoon. Maybe we'll do that on vacations in the future too...

Wednesday, Aug 4
We met with a representative from the travel agency we booked with and she gave us a lot of helpful information about the island and helped us plan an excursion for the following day. The rest of the day we spent relaxing by the hotel pool.

Thursday, Aug 5
We woke up early to catch a bus for an organized hiking trip into the mountainous center of Madeira to specifically see canals and waterfalls. The canals in Madeira are ingenious! They seem to run along side every road I've seen and are still in use to this day. Marlene took her camera for this trip so we'll upload those pictures later.

Friday, Aug 6
We were both exhausted and Marlene was especially sore for the previous day's hike so we relaxed by the pool most of the day. In the late afternoon we took a shuttle to Funchal and had an amazing dinner at Restaurante do Forte. I know that probably none of my readers will visit Madeira but if you do, I would strongly recommend visiting this restaurant. Near our table, right along the sea wall, with the best view of the ocean, was a reserved table. When the gentleman arrived, I was sure he was a professional soccer player, though I scoured the rosters of both Funchal teams and other Portuguese clubs and couldn't find him. You'll just have to trust me that local celebrities also enjoy dinner here.

Saturday, Aug 7
We slept in late after having arrived back to the hotel late the previous evening. In the afternoon we tried to walk down to the beach but found our hotel is farther away from the ocean than we originally thought. We can see the Atlantic from our terrace but the roads to get there are windy and difficult to navigate. We traveled about an hour before getting to another hotel which owned the beach front property and wouldn't allow us entry without buying a day pass. It hardly seemed worth it since it was a rock beach and their pool was smaller than one in our hotel so we turned around and took the bus back.

Sunday, Aug 8
I was delighted to find out that not all businesses were closed on Sundays like in Austria, so we ate breakfast at a nearby bakery. Then we spent the majority of the day in the spa, hopping in and out of mint/eucalyptus flavored saunas, jacuzzis, ice baths, and pools.

Monday, Aug 9 (today)
We took an early shuttle bus to Funchal, then boarded a cable car built by the Austrian company, Doppelmayr. They also built the cable cars we used when we went on a skiing trip to Bad Gastein. You can view all of the pictures here - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033933&id=78300124. Later in the album you can see the lunch we had. We had originally planned on going to a Brazilian steakhouse but then found a much more ghetto place near the gardens where we had a pitcher of sangria-like drink along with steak cooked on branches over a charcoal fire and delicious garlic bread. Marlene and I both agreed it was the second best meal we've had on the trip so far after the dinner at Restaurante do Forte.

We've still got a few days left in this beautiful island, hopefully I'll have another interesting entry to make. If you can't see the photos in the Facebook albums I've linked to, please friend request me!

You can view a Facebook photo album of pictures from our hotel here - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033932&id=78300124 - as long as you're friends with me :-)