"ISLAND OF FLOWERS" a Madeira Island Travel Page by Sininen

The plane took off in time and though the flight was 6 hours it went very quickly. We were offered a glass of champagne by the travel agency and I decided to have it, though I usually don’t drink any alcohol. I could have skipped that one, too. It wasn’t good at all. I’ve had a few glasses of the stuff in the past and have never liked it, so I think it’s very much overrated. Ulla and I had three seats to ourselves, so we were comfortable. The plane was smaller than the usual charter flight planes because the strip in Madeira airport is short, so we had thought that there would be very little room for the passengers. I managed to sleep on the plane for an hour or so and so did Ulla though she always claims that she never sleeps on any kind of vehicle! J

We landed half an hour early on Madeira, got our luggage and went to see if we could find our guide. No problem there. We had to leave our luggage with some guy as they were taken to the hotel on a separate bus. My dear friend is a pessimist and said she was sure that we’d never see our luggage again! What nonsense, I thought but didn’t say anything. So we sat on the bus surrounded by all these Finnish tourists and I felt so uncomfortable. It’s been years since I’ve taken a package holiday and I had completely forgotten what it was like. I tried to enjoy the scenery, which was absolutely stunning, but I have to say that I was most annoyed and wanted to get away from all those tourists. Then we arrived in Funchal, which is the capital of Madeira and there were hotels, hotels and more hotels. I wanted to take the first plane back to Finland then! I was sure that our holiday would be a disaster and swore to myself that it was the last package holiday I’d take.

We unpacked decided to take a walk and see some of Funchal. I still felt that I was in a wrong place and felt disappointment. Everywhere I could hear people speak Finnish and there were a lot of tourists from Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Great Britain and the usual Germans. Trees and plants were in full bloom and they were so beautiful. The Atlantic Ocean, which is never far on Madeira, was beautiful and blue. The sun was shining and no clouds on the sky, but still I felt that it wasn’t my place. I wanted to leave the hotel area and walk to the centre but Ulla was tired so we decided to leave it for the following day. On our way back to the hotel we had coffee and a piece of fruitcake in a nice café and it cost only €1,10. I still think that the lady charged us for one coffee and one cake only as on other days we paid for plain coffee as much as €1,50 each. Cake was too much and we could have shared one piece between us, but we manage to finish them anyway. Before going back we still did some shopping in the market. Though we were tired or because of it we didn’t fall asleep for quite some time but talked and giggled in bed. We were remembering all the funny things we had experienced together during our previous holidays.