Helloooooo! How are ya?
Embarking on the final leg of our Portuguese adventure, our days in Lisbon seem vivid and fleeting. This week we bid adieu to the vibrant, tram-lined streets of Lisbon and hello to Madeira, the “Hawaii of Europe”.
Cooler temperatures, the outdoors and an opportunity to strap hiking boots to my feet? Sign me up! Check out everything we got up to below.
- Wednesday 12th July
- Thursday 13th July
- Friday 14th July
- Saturday 15th July
- Sunday 16th July
- Monday 17th July
- Tuesday 18th July
Wednesday 12th July
I’ve got to start this week by saying that it’s with mixed emotions that we begin our last full day in Lisbon. I’ll sorely miss the colourful Portuguese streets and routine we’ve found here, but I’m going to be pleased to get out of this disgusting house.
I want a lay-in and a 45-minute shower to wash away what feels like a layer of filth covering my body. But there’s no rest for the wicked 😉 The cupboards are bare, and we’re making the most of our last day with a trip to Sintra (ahh!!), so a packed lunch is on the cards.
Chilvary is clearly dead because Mathew is still in bed, and I’m hitting the streets in search of the nearest shop for fresh bread. Talk about being the breadwinner of the family. Get it?
The train ride from Lisbon to Sintra is similar to the one to Cascais, except in a different direction. You still have to catch a tram, the metro and a train, and by the time we arrive at the station, I’m ready for a mid-morning nap!!
The train is an hour long, so we make the most of our time by researching what to do in Sintra once we arrive. A trip inside Pena Palace is at the top of our bucket list, so it is to my absolute horror that just 15 minutes into our journey, we learn that Pena Palace is temporarily closed due to staff strikes. Brilliant. Go staff, for protesting fair pay, but good god, we should have done our research earlier.
The clock strikes 10 am and armed with the news of strikes, we arrive in Sintra with nothing on our to-do list except an aimless wander around town. Talk about a hard life! Sintra is far more beautiful than I was expecting it to be. Seriously, so stunning. It’s giving Lake Como vibes without the lake (obviously), and I am 100% here for that. We didn’t spend nearly enough time exploring Lake Como, so this feels like a post-Italian whirlwind treat.
The strikes mean that the city is relatively quiet (go figure). So we race out of the train station and decide that instead of paying 5 euro for the bus, we’ll hike half an hour up to Pena Palace to try and get a glimpse of its red and yellow glory. The walk is amazing (but tough going), and once at the top, we’re greeted with the most measly view of one of the iconic red turrets (see my photo below). Oh well, it’s a view nonetheless and another (half) tick for our bucket list.
Having (somewhat, not really) fulfilled our desire to see one of Portugal’s most famous landmarks, we continue walking along the PR1 Santa Maria track into the bush and past Castelo dos Mouros.
The staff at Castelo dos Mouros are also on strike, but walking the Santa Maria track takes you through some of the gardens, which I recommend doing if you’re in the area!
We squeeze in a quick stop for lunch and then continue walking down the hill back into town. Sintra is stunning. Seriously so beautiful. I don’t know how to put into words how gorgeous every single street was, so I’ll let the photos speak for themselves!!!
That afternoon we boarded the train back to Lisbon. Mathew had the bright idea to get off the train two stops before our station and pay one last visit to Nanarella Gelateria for one last gelato of this leg of our trip.
There’s a reason I keep him around, and this might just be it. If you’re in Lisbon, promise me you’ll go here!!! I’m drooling just thinking about how good it was.
Thursday 13th July
At last, the day has come. It’s time to say goodbye to the worst house I have ever stayed in in my entire life. I wish I were joking, but I’m not. Did I mention our host left his *dirty* boxers on the sofa?
This morning we’re flying from Lisbon to Madeira (!!!!), the last stop on our Portuguese adventure. Madeira hasn’t been on my bucket list for very long.
Truthfully, I saw a girl’s video on TikTok about a year ago and liked the look of it so much that I told Mathew we had to go one day. It just so happened that three months after that view, we decided to pack up our lives and travel the world. It’s funny how things work out like that sometimes, huh?
I find travel days so awkward because our flights never seem to line up with our check-out/check-in times. This morning was another one of those moments, and we checked out of our house at 10:30 but weren’t flying till 4 that afternoon. So, we head straight to the airport to settle down into another quiet corner, abuse the free WIFI and do some last-minute itinerary planning.
The flight to Maderia is notorious for being full of turbulence and near-miss landings because of the tricky manoeuvring pilots must do to land the plane safely. And it is the third most dangerous airport in Europe. It’s safe to say that Mathew was double strapped in and white-knuckled on our ascent, which was a breeze. Talk about getting us worked up for nothing.
Once we landed in Madeira, we went through the airport to find a transfer to the island’s central city (where we’ll call home for a few days), Funchal. After a nail-biting trip on the bus (the roads over here are no joke), our driver dropped us in the centre of town and began the walk to our holiday home.
Madeira first impressions
- It’s beautiful
- I can see why they call it the Hawaii of Europe
- The drivers are absolutely mental
- This is the hilliest place I have ever visited
Google Maps indicated that our walk was 30 minutes long. Thirty minutes? That’s a walk in the park, a breeze! Or so we thought. It had conveniently failed to mention that those thirty minutes are entirely uphill.
Be warned. If you’re planning a holiday to Maderia, or thinking of adding it to your Europe itinerary, come alone. Even the strongest relationships may crumble in a fit of exasperation. Mine is personally hanging on by a thread, and as we round the corner of our fifth, near-vertical hill, I’m almost sure Mathew is going to terminate our relationship. Carrying two bags each and walking in 28-degree heat whilst scaling a 400m incline isn’t how I imagined by Thursday afternoon. But at last, we arrive at our apartment, sweaty, out of breath but miraculously still together. God, it’s got a nice view.
By now, it’s gone 6:30 pm; obviously, we’ve got nothing in for dinner. Our apartment is only 500m from the town centre, but that 500m is straight uphill. So, alas, there are no restaurants nearby, and a trip to the supermarket is on the cards. Near tears and thinking we’ve got to walk back down (AND UP) that god-forsaken hill again (I’d honestly rather go to bed hungry), Mathew spends 25 minutes researching the supermarkets closest to us and comparing their inclines—the things you do for love, huh.
Mathew’s navigational skills take us on a somewhat (keyword) flat route halfway across Funchal, where we pick up the ingredients for our first new home-cooked dinner meal: fried rice—a welcomed change after spaghetti for five weeks. I can almost feel my good gut bacteria thriving.
And with that, I’ll catch you tomorrow for our first full day of exploring. Night night!
Friday 14th July
Most mornings, I wake up before Mathew. He’s big on sleep, and I take after my Mum: unable to keep my eyes shut once the clock strikes 6:30 am. Usually, I’d waste away an hour on my phone or catch up on work. However, this morning I’ve got something even more important on the agenda… Figure out how the bloody bus timetables work so we don’t have to hike up that hill again.
It’s a lot easier than I initially anticipated and luck would have it that there is a bus stop directly out the front of our apartment. Praise Jesus.
After a quick breakfast and packed lunch-making session, we tear out of the house into the blazing sunlight and return to town to explore Mercado dos Lavradores.
Fruit and vegetables of all different exotic varieties line the perimeter of the farmer’s market as far as the eye can see. As a child (and as an adult, to be honest), I loved fruit more than anything else in the world. My perfect meal would have been a ginormous plate full of berries, cut-up melon and my favourite, Lychees. So, I imagine that little eight-year-old me would have had an absolute field day exploring here.
Mathew managed to sweet-talk one of the stallholders to give him a fruit sample. And his good looks and charm must have had an impact because she lets him try not one but three different varieties of dragon fruit. Good on you, love.
We go through the market and end up in the fish and seafood section. I’m naively shocked to find that there are more varieties of fish in the world other than Red Snapper, John Dory, and Kahawai. But black scabbardfish seems to be the most popular choice here, which looks like something out of a deep-sea horror movie.
By this point, I’ve seen enough fish to last me a lifetime (including a tray of 12cm snapper that would have put my Dad and every fisherman in New Zealand into a coma) and we head down to the waterfront for lunch.
After our sandwich, Mathew is about ready to fall asleep. So we jump onto one of the city’s buses and head home for the most delicious afternoon. Mathew is inside having a nap; meanwhile, I’m outside taking full advantage of the sun loungers our host has left us and baking away a day in the sun. I can’t imagine a better way to spend three hours!!!
We decided to push the boat out this evening and head back into town. In every place we’ve been to, we’ve gone out on the first night for an ‘orientation evening’ and drink to celebrate being in a new location.
But, as you know (thanks to our impromptu hike), we didn’t get to do that last night. So, we beeline to one of the best happy hour spots in town and soak up the rest of the evening in the sun. Delicious.
Saturday 15th July
When I researched the best way to travel around Madeira, SO many blogs said to catch the bus. But I don’t love public transport (yes, I know, a backpacker that doesn’t love budget travel – shocker), so I decided to book a rental car for the remainder of our week. Car rental is SO cheap here (200 euro for ten days!!), so it seemed like a no-brainer.
Having a car meant we could plan to explore a little further afield today. So, after doing the mandatory 25-minute “does this car have any scratches I’m going to get stung for” inspection and getting the keys to our new speed demon (I kid, it’s the world’s slowest Peurgot 108), we head out in the direction to Ponta Do Sol to walk the Leveda do Nova/Mionho track.
Madeira is full of gorgeous leveda tracks, which are relatively flat walks next to waterways (levedas) that deliver water around the island. Nova/Mionho has this social media famous rock face waterfall at the end, so naturally, that was our first stop for the day.
The walk starts near the Church of the Lombada in Ponta do Sol and begins by walking through loads of cultivated farmland, where you get panoramic views of the valley and up into the mountains.
All Trails doesn’t lie when it says this walk is flat. Except for a few off-the-beaten-track sections we added to explore a bit further, the walk was reasonably same-same, but beautiful nonetheless.
We had a quick stop for lunch (and met some friends ^^) and then began walking onto Nova and Mionho waterfalls.
These were insane, and if you’re reading this and looking to book a trip to Maderia, I definitely recommend spending an afternoon easing into your trip and doing this walk! It’s effortless, so green and lush. It reminded me of the hiking in Rarotonga and exactly how I imagine Hawaii looks.
Once we returned to the car, it was only 2 pm, so we decided to go onto another big ‘Instagram famous’ spot I’d seen floating around social media: Cascata dos Anjos.
I reckon the views speak for themselves. A waterfall off the side of the road that doubles as a car wash? Sign me up. Mathew and I spent twenty minutes here running through the waterfall with another couple we met taking photos, and it felt the same as being a kid jumping into giant puddles. Talk about indulging your inner child.
Then, it was off home for another dinner, a la fried rice, before our big day moving onto Sao Vicente tomorrow. See you then!
Sunday 16th July
Okay, I knew it had to at some stage, but our endless summer has rudely come to an end. This morning we awoke to bucketing rain and a thick fog covering Funchal. Ah, well, it had to eventually.
I believe in “there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing choices”, so Mathew and I slung our rain jackets over our shoulders, checked out of our apartment and headed towards Santana.
To squeeze as much hiking into our week as possible, a walk to PR11 Levada dos Balcoes was on our hit list today.
I wouldn’t call this a hike, as the path is flat and wide and takes only 30 minutes to get to the main vantage point, but it was a nice stop off to stretch our legs nonetheless.
Levada dos Balcoes is known for its 360-degree, panoramic views over Valley of the Nuns, AND (my favourite part) the super friendly wildlife that lives here. You can even buy bird seeds at the souvenir shop and feed them straight out of your hands.
The start of the walk to Leveda dos Balcoes takes you through a forest. The combination of fresh-smelling air, greenery and moody weather made Mathew and I feel like we had been teleported straight to New Zealand. I reckon Mathew was pretty happy, but I’ll let you be the judge of that based on the photo below.
Unfortunately, the weather gods were NOT on our side, and the heavens opened just before we reached the halfway point. Brilliant.
Short shorts and a rain jacket were probably the wrong outfit for a torrential deluge. But I’ve shot myself in the foot there because, like I said, there is no such thing as bad weather, just poor clothing.
We spent ten minutes standing in the rain aquatinting ourselves with the local wildlife (hand feeding sparrows was the best ten minutes of my entire life, and I wish I could have teleported my Mum into that moment to do it too) before racing back along the path and ducking inside a nearby cafe.
Restaurants, cafes and bars (or, in the case of the Dolomites, rifugios) on the side of popular hiking tracks in Europe will always amaze me. I can’t imagine a cafe halfway up the Tongariro Crossing or on the Pinnacles, but I think it’s bloody genius. When we got inside, the fire was roaring (did I mention it’s currently ten degrees here?), and the smell of hot chips filled the room. Delicious.
Slightly drier than we were an hour prior with tummies full of chips, we headed straight back towards the car, flicked the heating to high and continued onto Santana.
The drive up to the northern part of Madeira was nothing short of magical. I can’t get over the scenery here and how beautiful it is. Mathew is also now a pro at driving on the right (wrong) side of the road, so I took the role of Passenger Princess/DJ. We were listening to the radio the other day and heard Post Malones song “Chemicals”. It gave us enough serotonin to fuel a trip to space and back. So, naturally, we’ve listened to it approximately 52 times in the past three days, and it’s officially become the song of Madeira.
Don’t you love it when music holds so many memories? I hope we curate a whole host of songs from our holiday. Then when we’re back home and our whirlwind around Europe has ended, we’ll listen to them and reminisce about what a wonderful time we had together.
After several more stops at various Miradouros (lookouts), we arrived at our Air BnB in Sao Vicente. It’s a pretty basic but verrrry reasonably priced apartment and super peaceful.
The weather cleared up (praise the gods), so after a day in the car, we decided to dump and run with our things after dinner and head out to catch our first sunset of the trip.
We’ve been away for two months and talked a lot about homesickness and the things we miss. I thought I would be more homesick than I am. But our travels have been so go-go-go, and we haven’t really had time to stop and miss our lives back in New Zealand – only the people in them. I’m such a home bird and miss my family terribly. There have been so many times in the last few weeks that I’ve wished I could zap them here with me for the day or just for an experience I think they’d like. It’s cheesy, but seeing the sunset or sunrise (but I’m not often awake for that) makes those feelings so much stronger. With the time difference, we’re watching the sun go down and getting ready for bed, just as my lovely Mum watches the sun come up on her daily dog walk. I miss you, Mum and Dad ❤
And on that note, as we watched the sun go down, it was time for bed and another big day tomorrow. See you then!
Monday 17th July
Goooooooood morning Vietnam (Madeira). If you’ve been following these diaries, you’ll know that one of us (coughmathewcough) has the world’s worst immune system. Most recently, he got horrifically sick in the Dolomites. Because he has such a lovely, kind, sympathetic girlfriend, he was forced to endure 15km hikes with a cough (sorry, honey). Alas, we’re gearing up to begin another portion of our hiking adventure, and he’s come down with yet another cold. Bless him.
I don’t know if it’s because (as his Mum would say) this country bumpkin has rarely been out of New Zealand and exposed to foreign germs (oooh, scary), or he’s not #builtdifferent. But his immune system sucks. Naturally a trip to the supermarket was on the cards, where we stocked up on enough Vitamin C to cure scurvy.
Not one to back down from a challenge, Mathew pulled his big girl pants on and decided he wasn’t yet sick enough to sit out on a walk. So, we head toward Leveda do 25 Fontes, supposedly the best Leveda track on the island.
The walk starts from the top of a mountain peak. Usually, this wouldn’t be a problem; you drive to the top and start walking. Except we have the world’s most gutless car. Our 25-minute journey quickly turned into an hour, half of which was spent trundling up the hill at 30km an hour (in first gear, might I add) as the Grandmas of Madeira overtook us.
We spent the day walking through the jungle, bush and alongside the leveda waterways. The walk is undoubtedly more interesting than the Mionho/Nova walk the other day and is (in my humble opinion) a must-do for anyone visiting Madeira! It’s longer too, about four hours.
Leveda do 25 Fontes is an out-and-back trail, and the midway mark boasts a huge waterfall and lots of rocks to sit down on. By the time we reach the lookout, it’s only 10:30, but all this walking has worked up an appetite, and I’m already digging into my packed lunch. Classic.
The walk down to the main waterfall was mostly downhill, but we didn’t realise how much so until it was time to walk back up to the car. 3km uphill is enough to send anyone over the edge, let alone a man-flu struck 23-year-old with blisters. I think I have some grovelling to do after convincing him to walk today – oops!
After Mathew is safely back in the car and his cough has subsided, we drive West to the furthest point on the island – Ponta do Prado. Famous for its miradouros (viewpoints) and lighthouse, my expectations of this place were high.
If you’ve watched the Disney movie Moana (or have been anywhere on social media in the last five years), you’ll know the song “How Far I’ll Go” by Auliʻi Cravalho where Moana sings “See the line where the sky meets the sea? It calls me. And no one knows how far it goes.” Whilst she’s singing about her life in the Polynesian Islands, I couldn’t help but think how fitting it is here too. And, on that note, how vast the Atlantic Ocean is.
Lately, I’ve felt stressed. Not major stress, just general ‘change and uprooting your life’ kind of stress. I don’t want to admit it or say it aloud (or, rather, put it on paper) because it seems so ungrateful. I’m living my dream life, and even though I’m human and still have human feelings, to say that there’s a part of me that doesn’t feel 100% sounds preposterous. Anyway, something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently is how small we are in the grand scheme of things—specks in the earth’s ancient history. There have been people before us and people who will come after, roaming the world just as we do, each with similar problems that no distance (travelling or otherwise) will solve. But despite that, the horizon will always be there. Visible, no matter where you are, forever altering depending on your surroundings. In a world full of uncertainty, stress, anxiety, and change, it’s comforting to know that the line where the sky meets the sea will always be there as two come together, gently kissing each other.
Food for thought. On that note, it’s time for bed. See you tomorrow!
Tuesday 18th July
Yesterday’s good weather lasted for all five minutes, and today we’ve woken up to more rain and fog. I wish I weren’t one of those people whose mood alters depending on the weather, but I am. I get major SAD each year, and I feel everything is right when the sun shines. It’s a blessing and a curse.
However, a spot in Maderia known as Fanal Forest is best visited when the weather is decidedly gloomy. So, Mathew and I lean into what the gods have given us and drive 30 minutes west from Sao Vicente.
Fanal Forest is an ancient laurel renowned for the eerie atmosphere you get if you time your visit justtttt right. A thick canopy of trees and a dusting of moss covers the area. As the fog engulfs the forest, it creates an otherworldly, mystical and moody vibe that looks like it was cut straight out of a fairytale. Or one of the Twilight movies; you decide.
We arrived at Fanal Forest at 9 am, and a thick blanket of fog greeted us almost immediately. In some spots it was so thick you couldn’t see more than 20 feet in front of you. I’ve seen a lot of different landscapes in the last two months (two months travelling today – woohoo!), but this one takes the cake for the eeriest.
We spend about two hours walking around the forest, relaxing and snapping photos. We were planning on tackling the 11km forest walk (which looks incredible), but after losing my way to the car for the fourth time, I decided to give it a miss.
After our short, sweet visit to Fanal, we returned to the car and drove north to Porto Moniz. Porto Moniz is another of Maderia’s top destinations and is home to Ribeira da Janela.
Ribeira da Janela is this exceptionally gnarled, towering rock formation in the sea just off the shoreline. The beach is rugged and raw, much like the rest of Madeira, and there’s just something about the smell of fresh salt air that makes me feel so at home. I’m beginning to miss little old New Zealand.
Mathew and I walked up and down the shoreline for a while, throwing rocks into the sea and admiring the empty beach before calling it a day and heading home.
We spent the rest of our lazy afternoon catching up on work and writing, scrapbooking, making plans for the remainder of our time in Madeira AND getting ready for our wickedly exciting day tomorrow. Full recap coming soon – stay tuned!
Notes to Home 