Postcards from Madeira
Can’t believe I’ve been living in Madeira for nearly 3 months! It’s insane how the time has flown by. This isn’t really a proper post – it’s just lots of pretty pictures to hopefully inspire you to come here 🙂
Things to do in Funchal, Madeira
You’ve probably noticed that the title of this post is ‘Things to do in Funchal, Madeira’, as opposed to ’10/15/etc Things to do in Funchal, Madeira’. This is because, as I mentioned in my last post, I live here now, and so this list will probably be regularly updated as I find more and more things to do.
1. Cathedral
This cathedral is so cute and small and really opulent inside. Definitely worth a look.
2. CR7 hotel and museum
This is for those of you who like football. Since Cristiano Ronaldo was born in Madeira, he has his own hotel named after him. Shake hands with the statue of Ronaldo outside that looks nothing like him – imagination goes a long way!
3. Cable car to Monte
This is a really nice ride above Funchal. It takes around 15 minutes, so plenty of opportunity to take photos!
4. Tropical Gardens
If there’s one garden that you see in Madeira, make it the tropical gardens. They’re consistently named as some of the most beautiful gardens in the world and they’re stunning. My particular favourite (which has nothing to do with plants) is the geode room. I’ve never seen so many in one place before – or ones that are so big!
5. Toboggan
Imagine a sledge but without the snow. That’s pretty much what this is – but so much faster. You go down 2 km in around 5 minutes. I loved it, it was so much fun! (The one in the picture looks pretty battered – the ones you go down in are much better condition!)
6. Casino
As well as being a casino (obviously), you can have dinner with a show here. The singers have incredible voices!
7. Presidential Gardens
Only 1 euro and when I visited, there were parrots! (I don’t know if the parrots are always there or not…)
8. Santa Maria Street
The street of painted doors. I have spent many a night wandering around the bars here 😉
9. Municipal Gardens
Slap-bang in the middle of town, these gardens are a nice place to go to relax and pretend you’re not in the middle of a city.
10. Santa Catarina Park
My favourite park (after the tropical gardens). I love just sitting and looking down at the marina, or at the pond, where there are usually lots of swans!
Moving to Madeira
So, I’ve been AWOL for a bit. But I have the best excuse! I’ve just started working as a holiday rep with TUI and I now live in Madeira! I just got here on Monday, but I love it so far. You guys can expect lots of posts about Madeira in the future, but, to tide you over just now, I’m going to post these lovely photos 🙂
The Palace of Versailles
As promised, here is my post of my visit to the Palace of Versailles. This was one of the main reasons I visited Paris this time, and I am so glad I got to visit. It’s so much more impressive (and bigger) than I thought it would be. The gardens are so big, they have their own bus service, and you can rent golf buggies by the hour!
I am seriously in love with this little mill. I think I took around three dozen photos of just this one building! It’s so cute!
Disneyland Paris
You guys. You have no idea how excited I get at anything to do with Disney. If there’s a bunch of films on TV and one of them is Disney, then it’s on. I have so many Disney teddies (and I just bought a couple more at Disneyland). I think I took around 400-odd photos on this trip to Disneyland, but I’m only going to share a couple dozen, or so (otherwise, we’ll be here all day!)
I need to show a close-up of this guy’s face. It’s amazing:
“Ha! Peasants.”
