Top Ten Typical Madeira Sites: Madeira wine, food, and thatched houses

Thatched triangular house at Santana mountainside village in Madeira. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Problem
What to do in Madeira? Having been there recently, I shall make notes immediately on getting home as a reminder of what to see next time.

Answers
I assume you are staying in the capital, Funchal. A motorway takes you to hotels in Funchal, the capital, where about half the population lives. Book a car from the airport or online. Booking though hotel reception could be mush higher price.
See or eat in the restaurant of one of the top three hotels:

1 HOTELS with views
Reid Hotel - traditional and historic.
Winston Churchill stayed here. So did Roger Moore.
Pestana Casino Park - modern. Dining room with panoramic sea view.
Savoy - biggest hotel in Madeira; signs say it will open spring 2019.
(Budget altenative - many budget hotels and restaurants with sea views or panormaic views over the valleys.
Hotel with news:
CR7. Named after football hero Cristiano Ronaldo.

2 SWIM
in the outdoor seawater pools, at Porto Moniz, north west of the island.
Alternatively, staying at Pestana Casino Park hotel, try the Jacuzzi and the jets in the indoor swimming pool. You can sit in jets, lie in jets, stand in jets.

3 BUS TOUR - Funicular - Botanical Gardens
Take the red or yellow open top tour bus. Take the red bus to visit Monte, the funicular, and the wicker basket descent.
Budget alternative. Be photographed in the wicker toboggan on the top floor of La Vie shopping mall, a few steps away from the seafront.

4 GLASS BALCONY VIEW
Take the yellow bus tour (or drive or take a public bus) to the lookout point with the glass floor.

5 LEVADA WALK
Do a levada walk. Easy walk on a level - Ribero Frio.
Budget - take a public bus to Ribeiro Frio (meaning cold river). Take the walk above the road to the lookout balcony with birds.

6 LEVADA WALK DOWN TO WATERFALL Walk on the levada walk downhill to see the waterfall. Catch the bus back uphill. (It's an eight seater minibus like a big jeep, about three dollars.)
This killed my calf muscles. Leave it to the last day.

7 MADEIRA WINE
Try some Madeira wine, a fortified wine, and learn about it.
Visit in Funchal:
a) D'Olivera  Madeira Wines - sit at barrell tables and try the drinks. We had a pre-arranged group talk for about 15 people. We had a talk from Luís D'Olivera, a quietly spoken dear little man, sad about the death of his older brother, whose picture you can see at the entrance - such a shame - a lovely man, elegant, refined. I wish I had had the chance to meet him.
www.doliveiras.pt
b) Blandy's Madeira Wine Company  - around the corner from D'Olivera. These are the two big ones. Blandy's is bigger.

8 MADEIRA RUM IN SPECTACULAR SETTING BY CLIFFS
c) Drive to Porto da Cruz, to see the Distillery producing rum from sugar cane. Big old distillery. Just walk in and read the captions and leaflet.
Next door is the shop which has open bottles for free tastings but if we had not read the leaflet we'd never have known.

Toilets by the seafront restaurant, with views from tables on one side, but when we were there everybody sat the other side. Toilets with graffiti. Another visitor exclaimed in horror. (However, to me a toilet cubicle and water to wash hands was a luxury after visiting the peninsular walk at Ponta (viewpoint) São Lourenço - magnificent sea views but no toilets and no bushes either, toilet paper scattered along the verge by the parked cars.)
Porta Da Cruz has a tiny stony black vaolcanic ashe beach under a massive cliff with crashing waves and - impressive.
www.engenhosdonorte.com
Read up in The Wines of Madeira by Trevor Elliott.

9 SKEWERS OF MEAT OR FISH
Try local food, such as tender moist fish or tender meat on skewers. I recommend two very different places:
1 Cosy rooftop terrace down a side street, no view. Coffee, Madeira wines, or a full meal with the meat on skewers.
Casal da Penha terrace bar
tel:291 227 674
2 Beer House, on a pier with a view over the boats and sea.  They make their own beer in a small distllery you can see. Toilets downstairs.
www.beerhouse.pt

10 SEE TRIANGULAR THATCHED HOUSES. (See my previous post.)
They are in Santana, a village named after the chapel for Saint Anna. Yes, you can visit them, photograph the outside and go inside. They are used as shops to display local crafts. I went into the flower shop.

Finally, shopping.
You can buy cork bags and hats, embroidery with the thatched houses,
 Madeira wine, honey rum, and bottled cocktails.

Useful Travel Information
Hotels
https://www.pestana.com/en/hotel/pestana-casino-park
https://www.pestanacr7.com/en/hotel/pestana-cr7-funchal (Named for Madeira's Critiano Ronaldo and his football tem number 7, next to the museum dedicated to him and football.)
www.pestana.com
https://www.belmond.com/hotels/europe/portugal/madeira/belmond-reids-palace/

Restaurants
www.casaldapenha.com

Wine tasting
www.doliveiras.pt

Sightseeing
Red bus
www.citysightseeing.pt

Travel Tips
Fly by (alphabetically)
Azores Airlines (A Portuguese airline)
https://www.azoresairlines.pt/en 

British Airways
britishairways.com

EasyJet
easyjet.com

TAP Portuguese airlines
flytap.com

Flight Comparison
expedia
expedia.com

tripadvisor
tripadvisor.com

Official website
http://www.visitmadeira.pt/en-gb/homepage

Angela Lansbury
Travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have other posts on Madeira and footballer Ronaldo and his museum

Eton Vintners - wine tastings and unusual wines

Problem
I was invited to Eton Vintners to taste Madeira. Madeira - what is it?

Answer

Madeira is a wine, but a strong wine. It is made on the island of Madeira. Why not. Try anything once. I went to the Madeira wine tasting at Eton Vintners. My family are on their mailing list for tastings.

Free Tasting
There is no charge for tastings, and you might take just a sip of one or two items and, if you liked nothing, move on. However, if you stay for an hour or more and sample a dozen or more wines including some which are old and expensive you may feel obliged to buy something.

Wines Stocked
If so, the shop has lots of stock. They have unusual wines. By the door, those under ten pounds. The rest of the shop divided clearly into regions such as Italy and New Zealand, or styles such as dessert wine and organic.

Seasonal Gifts
At this time of year there are seasonal gifts. You might like A British gin flavoured with raspberries. a hamper, a corkscrew, an apron, quails' eggs, chocolate truffles.

Parking
The sign on the door says that they have customer parking at the back. They must have a video monitor or a sixth sense or acute hearing because they hear you arrive in the car park and they open the back door to let you in.

Future Events
You can see the forthcoming tastings on their website. Alternatively, ask to be on their mailing list.

For more about Madeira wine and the island of Madeira see the next post.

Eton Vintners
31 St Leonard's Road
Windsor
SL4 3BP.
Tel: 01753 790188.
https://etonvintners.com

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
See my other travel blog:
http://luxurytravelforless.co.uk

Ten more handy Malay and Indonesian words

Problem
You want to learn another language. You want to read signs in Singapore and Malaysia and Indonesia.

Answer
Start with the easy ones. Ten a day. For fun. First thing in the morning. With coffee over your coffee break. Last thing at night to clear your head of your worries. At least you are making progress at something, increasing your general knowledge.

English - Malay / Indonesian

brandy - brandi
hill - b u k i t
rum - rum
sand - p a s i r
sand dune - b u k i t p a s i r

sandal - sandal
sauce - s a u s
sauna - sauna
sausage - s o s i s (memory aid SOS I See a sausage)
shampoo - sampo

Seen around Singapore

English - Malay / Indonesia
school - sekolah

Indonesian / Malay - English
s e k o l a h - school

Author
Angela Lansbury, teacher of English and languages, speaker and author.
Please share my posts and blogs.

Stop at Waitrose for weekly magazine and recipe cards

When in London, England, stop at Waitrose to buy a Sunday paper and pick up recipe cards and Waitrose weekend. The recipes in the magazine are a mixture of simple recipes which require something simple like buying salmon and adding a ready made sauce, meals in minutes to pop in a microwave, or 'proper' recipes for keen cooks requiring several ingredients and an entertainment for the morning afternoon or evening.

The mincemeat Eccles cakes with rum and mandarin butter set our keen cook getting busy whilst I went researching Eccles cakes and others (see previous post).

Rum
Brown rum is aged in cask and coloured with caramel. (The caramel is made from sugar, but cooked a bit more than syrup, until it oxidises).


Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, researcher, author, speaker.