Madeira, Portugal

I’m not a fan of bumpy flights nor do I fancy getting stuck on an island due to a storm, unable to fly out for days. Truth be told, had I known that the Madeira airport was listed as one of the most alarming airplane landings in the world, I would have picked another destination for our spring holiday.

But, thankfully the day we flew into Madeira, the sky was blue and the wind calm.

We even got a good look at the stretched out Ponta de São Lourenço

On our way in, before landing at the Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport in Funchal.

After checking into our airbnb, we went for a walk.

At the end of April, the island was brimming with flowers, setting itself up for the annual Flower Festival. (Note: the last photo featured a Kapuk tree with its cotton like seed pods).

We had dinner at Akua by chef Júlio Pereira.

  • Homemade bread with seaweed butter
  • Wines and passionfruit lemonade
  • Tuna tartar
  • White fish ceviche that tasted better than it looks
  • Marinated sardines with passionfruit mousse
  • Fish sausage – left to right: back of tuna, tuna chouriço, grouper farinheira, snapper morcela made with squid ink, tuna belly and pickled onions. Very interesting idea to make these well-known Portuguese sausage out of different types of fish. We love it.
  • Braised tuna with razor clam rice 😋

Click/swipe through the slides to see descriptions of the dishes we had

Chanced upon a concert at the Funchal Municipal Garden, celebrating April 25th – the overthrewn of the authoritarian Estado Novo government on April 25th 1974 in Lisbon.

Before settled in for the night.

We will be on this island for a whole week. Stay tuned to see where we visited in Madeira.

20 thoughts on “Madeira, Portugal”

  1. Pingback:  The Blumental Panorama Walk, Switzerland – Travel-Gourmand.com

  3. Gorgeous! I’ve visited Portugal, but I’ve not stepped foot onto Madeira. I’ve heard it’s absolutely stunning, and I can’t wait to read more of what you’re up to there. Safe travels!

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  5. We’re weighing up Madeira as an option for our summer holiday, so the timing of this series of posts couldn’t be better! Looking forward to reading about what you got up to.

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      1. That’s helpful to know! I don’t mind the heat – for me, the deciding factor would be whether it’s a sticky heat or a dry heat. Might end up being one to save for the Easter break next year (as a teacher, I’m tied to the school holidays which can be a pain at times!).

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      2. Actually I just checked it’s actually not too hot in the summer. And they have many levadas in the forrests you can go. I think it might be alright after all and most likely better than Easter break.

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      3. From google 🙂
        Is Madeira too hot in July?
        It’s pretty mild at this time of year, but it’s a good idea to bring along a jumper or light jacket for the evenings. The average daily maximum is 25 C and the average daily minimum is 20 C.

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      4. 25C sounds like a good temperature to me 😀 (Especially as winter seems to be lasting forever here – we had snow this morning!) Thank you also for the tips about the forests. We’d most likely centre our trip around the hiking/outdoors activities, so that sounds promising.

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  7. Dinner looks exotic – way to be adventurous! I haven’t been to Spain or Portugal but hope to get there someday based on yours and others’ experiences. The terra cotta roofs on your approach to landing remind me of the California neighborhoods where I grew up.

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