We’re in Madeira 😊.

We’ve been vacillating for some time. We’d booked the flights out and back and hotel weeks ago but with concerns at home, we didn’t finally decide to go until I’d made it around the park run with Ioan on Saturday morning. Menna dropped us off at thorn hill park and ride …

and took an afternoon bus to Gatwick. Rather than trying to barrel down to Gatwick first thing on Sunday morning Dorothy has suggested holing up in the premier inn until our flight at 7:15 next morning. Definitely a good decision. We had a good night’s sleep and were nicely relaxed and ready to leave the UK and its problems behind, at least for a while.

The flight was uneventful, less than four hours and a mere hour or so after arriving we were safely ensconced in a really lovely, light room overlooking an attractive section of Funchal.

The hotel has a bar on the top floor overlooking the marina. Currently there are two large ocean liners in port. Here’s the larger of the two.

One left port earlier.

Talking to the local bar staff, it’s clear that Madeira is heavily dependent on tourism. Some 70% are apparently employed servicing or in some way contributing to supporting the industry. Unlike swathes of the uk which actively dislike tourists, here it’s regarded as a really good thing and there’s no resentment.

The promenade is well developed. Only a few hundred metres from this spot lies Christiano Renaldo’s hotel, museum and bar complex CR7.

After an evening strolling along the front and sampling local cuisine we retired to our room with its enormous bed and watched the sun set.

Bon voyage