2025 POSTCARD FROM MADEIRA Wednesday 16 July – Wednesday 30 July

I left home at 4pm on Wednesday 16 July and spent the night at the Hilton at Gatwick. Woke up on Thursday 17th at 4.45am and used Assistance to go into and around the Airport. A great help to save the back pain and carrying luggage with my cracked elbow. Took off for Madeira a little late but arrived almost on time. A good flight from the bumps point of view but dreadful from the BA crew. Refused me some water when we were still on the ground at LGW. They really were very poor. Arrived at the Portobay Santa Maria Hotel around 1.30 and checked into my suite – quite a nice one at garden level. I can walk over to the pool from my window entrance, but you can’t lock the window door when you leave. You are meant to do a long walk via the hotel entrance to the pool but I have asked that they leave my window entrance open when they clean my room so I can return to my room from the pool more easily! My first few days were spent quietly on a sun lounger topping up my tan with the odd dip into the pool. Fortunately, the pool was a reasonable temperature and there were steps into/out of the pool! Did a stroll along the Funchal streets one afternoon and stocked up my fridge/nibbles! On Monday 21st I joined a Get Your Guide tour of the West of the island. Sadly the weather was poor in the Falan Forest so didn’t even get out of the car. But after that had a good visit to Porto Moniz, where we had a 2 hour [!!!] stop for lunch and were then driven all along the coast back to Funchal, stopping at various small towns where I visited some beautiful churches. Did not enjoy having so many kids on board – their continual chatter made it difficult to hear the guide. One evening I was invited to drinks with the GM as I am a member of the Prestige Group. However, although we got a drink, it was the GM haranguing us [only about 12 guests] of what is going to be done to the present hotel and that they are going to build another Portobay in Funchal. All a bit strange. Tuesday through Thursday was quite cloudy which suited me! Even tried to rain on Thursday but just a drizzle for a short while. One day it was very windy and umbrellas and towels were flying all over the place! After that it was almost too hot with sunshine every day until the last two days when thankfully the sun disappeared! But after a week of lying around doing nothing very much I was quite ready to come home.