The flight from Porto to Madeira takes 1hr 40mins.
I only came to know of this island recently, when Chua Enlai posted about this place on his recent trip to Europe, and there were some elements of it that looked amazing.
Upon arrival, I headed over to the airport shuttle stop, which has a very infrequent bus schedule and the next one will only arrive about 40 mins later.
The good thing is that the trip to the nearest stop to the hostel took less than 30 mins, and with very few people on board (about 8 people in total), there were no stops at all and I was the 1st one to get off.
It's a good thing I was able to check into the hostel early and got round to exploring Funchal before noon.
The walk took me towards Praça do Município (City Hall).
This was also where Igreja do Colégio - Igreja de São João Evangelista is located and inside was quite impressive.
Everywhere was really quiet when I walked through the city centre, and then I later realised that a number of things are closed on a Sunday. It's a good thing the supermarkets and some restaurants are still open!
My next stop took me to Funchal Cathedral, but there was a mass going on at the time. As I was feeling hungry, I headed to the nearest café at Madeirinha Cafés and ordered a Bola do Cono with Chorizo and pineapple juice.
Bola do Cono is must order in Madeirã, which is essentially a local wheat bread with garlic spread (just like garlic bread), toasted with what other fillings you choose to have it with.
As for the juice, I asked the staff what juices they have and they suggested pineapple. It's been a while since I had the juice, so I was pleasantly surprised that this was available. I suppose it's an island after all!
By the time I was done with the snack, mass had just ended at the church and I went to take a look at the inside. It was less impressive than Colégio.
Continuing on with the random walking, I soon found myself at Santa Catarina Park, a very pleasant park with a church in the middle of the city with great views of the harbour.
It was starting to get really warm, and I also noticed many people on the streets were just wearing t-shirt and shorts. I feel overdressed in this weather, but I don't have much of a choice as I have packed mostly for the winter 😅
I walked down to the waterfront and soon found myself in front of a statue of Christiano Ronaldo, who is originally from Madeirã. Do you think this statue looks like him?
There is even a museum for him!
Not far from the museum is a residential building which is claimed to be his house, not sure how true that is!
This casino however looks like a fortress!
I passed by an ice cream store while at the waterfront and craved for one in today's hot weather. This is a very generous 2 scoops of ice cream on the cone!
Other views along the way...
As most things were closed, and I was feeling somewhat drained from the weather as well as having woken up really early this morning, I headed back to the hostel to take a rest, before heading out for dinner.
Dinner venue is at Kampo by Chef Julio Pereira. This place came recommended by Enlai and also quite a few websites which indicated this to be one of the top end restaurants in Funchal.
I ordered a tuna tartare, which was served in a cone, followed by a fillet, mushroom and foie gras dish, as well as a glass of red wine.
The food was good, though I was expecting more from the place for the price and the hype. Probably I didn't get to try the other stuff too, as the appetisers available are meant for sharing.
Time to call it an early night!
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