Summer pt. 2

Part two of the recap starts with the day we left to drive back to Munich (and in the end back home to Nuremberg spontaneously because we forgot something we wanted to take). We left around 10 am and were home at 3pm. Watered the plants, had some late lunch and left again around 5 pm. In Munich we had some dinner (yummy Mexican food and Caesars Salad) and then stayed the night at my cousins place. She was nice enough to give us the key because unfortunately they weren’t there that weekend. We crashed around 10 pm because we had to get up at 3 am to be at the airport at 4. The plane was scheduled to leave at 6 am and we had a stopover in Lisbon on our way to Funchal, Madeira. I was a nervous wreck that morning. Not enough sleep plus I already missed my kids a bit plus I absolutely HATE flying after some horrible trip a few years back. So I slept most of the time on the plane to Lisbon (while hubby to lots of nice pictures - fortunately not of me sleeping but only of the scenery) and also on the next flight from Lisbon to Madeira. We arrived around 11 am, got our bags pretty quick and found the shuttle to the hotel in no time. So we arrived at the hotel around 1 pm and had to wait a little before the room was ready (Check-In time was 2 pm). We walked around, sat at the pool for a while and explored the hotel and surroundings a bit. The weather was gorgeous, a little cloudy but still really warm. After getting our room we changed into our swim suits, relaxed a bit on the bed (I even fell asleep for a while) and then went to the pool for two hours before Dinner.

The Hotel (we chose the Melia Madeira Mare) is really nice. Pretty new and modern, the room was big enough and had a small desk, a lounge chair and table, a small balcony (unfortunately for us right next to the humming air condition so we never really sat outside) and a modern bathroom with a bathtub and a toilet that was separated from the rest of the room by a small door (great for privacy). 

We arrived on Sunday and from then until Friday we did…nothing…or mostly nothing. Except walk down to get breakfast around 9 am (on the outside terrace right next to the pool), walk the few meters to the pool at 9:30 am (after a breakfast including fresh fruit, coffee and champagne – every day!), lay in the sun, hop into the pool, lay in the sun some more, walk to the room for a nap, walk back to the pool, walk to the restaurant to have Dinner (right next to the pool again) and walk back to the room to sleep. And all over again the next day. On Tuesday we did change the routine a bit and decided to take a small walk towards Funchal, which was told us is about an hour walk one way. The lady who greeted us told us there is a small farmers market which is nice and traditional and lots to see downtown. So we started around 3:30 pm, it was pretty warm but not too hot. When we got to downtown we were pretty disappointed because most stores were closed even though the signs said that opening hours were until 6 pm or 7 pm. It wasn’t a weekend or a holiday but still, the city was almost empty and the farmers market was…..also closed. So we got some traditional bread at the Marina and walked all the way back. We were back at the Hotel around 6 and had an early Dinner. Afterwards we decided to hit the Gym and the Indoor Pool/Jacuzzi. It was nice and we wanted to do that more often…but somehow didn’t…too lazy…

Friday we called someone to rent a car for the weekend to at least see a bit more of the Island. It isn’t really that big, maybe 50 km east to west and 25 north to south. We wanted to do a west tour and an east tour, driving along the south coast where the hotel was located until we reach the “highway” road that connects the south with the north. There are a lot of small mountain roads, which have been there a long time and are beautiful (scenery wise) and they build a “speedway” that basically runs straight through the middle (north to south) including driving through a 3 km long tunnel (not so beautiful - scenery wise). We took the highway to get to the north fast and then took all the beautiful scenery roads along the West Coast on Saturday and all the beautiful scenery roads along the East Coast on Sunday. It took all day on Saturday and we got back to the hotel around 6pm. We stopped along the way to have some late lunch in a small roadside restaurant on the coast, high up on a cliff with a great view and had some yummy and cheap food (that was like 14 Euros total for both of us). Sunday we drove along the East Coast and stopped on the most eastern part of Madeira. We walked up the cliff to take some pictures and all of a sudden I saw a few small lizards running over the sand and stones, they came out of the small holes in between and in no time we were surrounded by at least 8 of them. They didn’t really seem scared. I was only wearing flip-flops and while hubby took a picture I felt something on my foot. I screamed and jumped, almost kicking my flip-flop off the cliff because one of the small beasts nibbled on my toe. I have never seen anything like that, usually the run away as soon as they feel the ground vibrate. It was just totally weird.

We were back earlier than we thought and so we stopped at the “Mall” we had passed the day before, originally just to buy some souvenirs for the kids and maybe some ice cream but in the end I was the proud owner of some new, sexy underwear and a pair of gorgeous new High Heels (that will probably kill my feet one day). Sunday evening we started packing because we would be picked up at 3:20 am on Tuesday morning and we wanted to enjoy Monday evening without any hassle of packing, plus we wanted to sleep early. I also had to get up even earlier than hubby because I had decided to take part in another VyRT-Livestream by my favorite band which happened to start at 1 am that night. So I went to bed around 10 pm, got up a little after 1 am, watched about 2 hours of the livestream and we were picked up for the airport in the middle of the night. Arrived at the airport a little before 4 am, the Check-In wasn’t even open yet and then had to wait until 5 before we could board. The plane left at 6 and we had a stopover in Lisbon again (at 7:30 *yawn*). Finally arrived in Munich at 1 pm, got the car and drove back down to Italy. Got there around 5 pm, after being up 12 hours, dealt with some really hyper kids, who were glad to have us back and fell into bed at 9:30 pm.

Stay tuned for the Rest...

Irene