Out for vacations (Madeira Island)

[Tiago]

Hi everyone, i'm back from vacations !
Madeira Island is great !!! It has 2 major islands: Madeira and Porto Santo (much smaller then Madeira). I have a lot of photos to process, but i will put here the first photos, taken from my LG990, it's a mobile but they are very nice:
I will put more in Picasa later.

Excellent food, not expensive, very beautiful, Porto Santo has 8km of beach with gold sand and the water is crystal clear like a post card from Caribbean (check 1st photo), if you like nature this is the place to go!

[Harrison]

I couldn't get your images to show in the forums.

I instead took the URL from your post for the first image and looked at that that way. For anyone else use http://picasaweb.google.com/tiagolob...70335600756930

It does look really nice there. Is there much to see and do on the islands?

[Tiago]

Madeira has:
- the main Island "Madeira" something like +/- 60x20 Km
- Porto Santo Island something like +/- 15x5 Km
- other desert islands

Dont expect to find lots of discos/clubs here. They have a few but not a lot.
Landscape is excellent, really really good, so nature is the main feature here.
You have a lot of ...how do you say "walking? path walking" Tracks? in the forest, you have water falls, montains, you can find a lot of of that in Madeira. You can also watch dolphins, i went in a cruise in a catamaran were they garantie to see dolphins in open see, if you dont, they give you an extra ride next day until you see them, probably you can see whales to. The trip is 3 hours, and i saw a group of +/- 20 dolphins they were just around the catamaran, it's a great experience, because you are not in a zoo or in a swiming pool, you are in open see between 1 and 5 km from shore.
If you like beach, you can go by boat from Madeira to Porto santo where you have 8 km of sand with a golden color, and where the water is crystal clear, looks like those post cards from carebean, but much less expensive :-)
food is more then excellent, with 35 euros you can have a fantastic lunch/meal for 2 persons 20 meters from the see. but you can find cheaper then that, and of course much more expensive also. The weather... always summer !! main temperature is not to high, but is always in a range from 20 to 25 celcius , but different weather, 25 in madeira looks 30 in Portugal.
This week it was always +/- 25 perfect for all activities, but you have to be carefull, in Portugal i am used to the sun, and in Madeira with 25 celcius i get my neck all red... all tourist there from UK, France, Germany, they were all Red :-)
if you see on tha map Madeira is far bellow europe, so it's a very different weather, tropical maybe.


http://www.madeira-live.com/en/dolphins-video.html
http://www.madeiracatamaran.com/

[Sharingan]

Sounds like you had a good time

[Harrison]

Sounds good. I don't like clubs/discos and we always try to pick places to go on holiday that don't have any, so that is great. We also like exploring so walking is good also.

What about tourist spots? Caves, historic buildings, ruins, museums.. etc?

[Tiago]

Portugal has a lot of historical places, Madeira has 500 years of history, since we got there, it's not so historical as Portugal (continent) but it has a lot of things.


A good place to start is here:
http://www.madeira-web.com/

http://www.madeiraislands.travel/pls...over%20Madeira

Museums? Not a lot but it has some,
Caves?
http://www.madeira-web.com/PagesUK/caves-sv.php
yes a few, if you like to walk... they are in the forests, so you have a lot of miles to walk, if you do, you can see some caves, water falls, montains, a lot of botanic stuff, a large wild scenery there. But again, you must walk...

check out the hotel where we here:
http://www.dom-pedro-garajau.com/index.html

but again i must say that is perfect for:
- nature contact
- relax vacation
- food
- see activities (catamaran, dolphin waching 100% garantie to see them!! )
- beach in porto santo island - maybe the best beach in europe, where the sand has a gold color the water is crystal clear, you dont have buildings that damages the scenery, you dont have to much people on the beach, we were alone for 500 meters last monday.
perfect !!!

a note: you must rent a car, Madeira island is not flat, it's always up of down, so you need a car to get to diferent places, and when you get there, you stop the car, and then you walk into the forest for miles and miles where you only see trees, montains, water falls.... nature in her very best.
and if you compare the prices with other places in europe, you can see that it's a very good, plus, language will not be a problem, almost everyone speaks english.

If you need more info... i will post more pictures as soon as i have some time

[Demon Cleaner]

Looks really nice Maybe I should plan my next trip there, I was already in Italy, Spain and Portugal, but Madeira seems to be the nicest.

[Sharingan]

I very much enjoyed my vacation to Algarve just a few months ago. Loved the food, the weather, the people, the places. Perhaps this might be a good alternative