We arrived at the dreaded Madeira airport on Friday evening. We were not blown into the sea. We only managed to rent a car (don't forget to bring your credit card. If you have a debit card, the cost of renting a car will more than double. I didn't have a classic, so I cancelled the reservation and we walked a few miles from the airport to rent a car at a small, private rental place that didn't require a credit card), drove to the hotel, and went to dinner. We opted for pizza at a nice restaurant called Papa Manuel do Lido IV with a view of the sea and the sunset.

We chose the first day to relax. First breakfast with a beautiful view of the sea, then swimming, sunbathing, classic 🌞 There were very few tourists in Madeira at the time of our visit and we liked that. We had the pool to ourselves the whole time.

Our only sightseeing stop on the first day was Cabo Girão, the highest cliff in Madeira, which is 589 metres above sea level and one of the highest cliffs in Europe. At the top of the cliff there is a glass lookout. When you climb it, there's a half-kilometre hole below you. Nothing for the faint hearted, perfect for fools like us. Anyone with a drone can get some amazing footage here. Admission is free all year round. 

In the evening, on the way to our accommodation, we stopped at the beach near the small town of Riviera brava and had a romantic sunset dinner at the Restaurante & Grill Muralha Terrace. I highly recommend the local specialty - Tissue (espada) served with fried banana. It sounds strange but it's unbelievably good 😊🍴

We spent the night in pleasant, newly renovated accommodation and a fabulous infiniti pool with an even more fabulous view. Where doesn't love infinity pools? 🤔

The next day we decided to get a little bit fitter. Madeira is crisscrossed with Levadas - man-made irrigation canals that collect water from all over the island and deliver it to where people need it. If you go to Madeira (of course you will 😊), you can't miss the levadas. Our first choice was the PR6  levada with (allegedly) 25 waterfalls along the way. Well... you will definitely meet waterfall(s). Probably not 25, but there's definitely a few. The first part is on a tarmac road, so not much over midday. The second part is through the woods, and that's a different story. At the end you will find the highest waterfall with a small lake to swim in as a reward. As there is a constant flow of water in it, the water is (really really) cold. But according to Wim Hof, you just need to take a little breath and you're "in the clear". Anyway, expect not to meet many people along the way, but it will be crowded at the last waterfall. I can't imagine how many people will be there at non-metal times. Of course, you can take a picture so that "no one is there" 😃

The journey is 4.6 km there and 4.6 km back. Our trip took 4 hours, 20 minutes with swimming, lunch and drone filming. Well, we didn't completely rush 😂

After a good job, a good reward! After the first levée, we drove down from the inland back to the sea and went to the "sea" restaurant Sol e Mar. I like octopus, so the choice was obvious. The portions were such that I finished the octopus for lunch the next day 😃 My girlfriend doesn't like (food from) the sea so she made sure she had a caesar salad.

On the 4th day we chose to relax again. We stayed in a beautiful family-run hotel Colina da Fajo, where we were again completely alone. In the evening you can play pool for free and during the day you can enjoy the beautiful, green, infinity pool. It's green on purpose 😃 We enjoyed our day there with Elon Musk 🚀 Check out the stone door frame in the glass wall. Amazing, I want that at home! I recommend the accommodation again with all ten of my heart.

In the late afternoon we drove to the other part of the island, to Porto Moniz. There is a natural bathing area in a lava "pool". You have 2 choices: 1) you go to the paid part, where the head is on your head, 2) you go to the unpaid part, which is more natural and the people are much better. We don't like people, so we chose the second option. Really interesting, just watch out for the stubbed toes and cut feet, the lava is quite sharp 🙈 

By the way - this is one of the few places to swim in Madeira. As I mentioned before, Madeira is volcanic and you will hardly find sandy beaches here. The biggest one - Calheta - is man-made and will make you feel like you're in Croatia in high season. Personal space - 0.1 m2. We were sick of the view from the car 🤢 

Hmm, what can I say? Interesting stone! 😃

In the town of Seixal we managed to find another very interesting accommodation. An old stone house with period furniture. The interior! 😍 One room was even its own chapel ✝

A short walk from Seixal is the beautiful Miradouro do Véu da Noiva waterfall. A place made for a drone, you'll get some great shots here. I recommend crossing the roadblock that lies on the way to the waterfall and walking along the old, overgrown path and directly to it. You'll be alone and you'll be much closer to the waterfall. Just watch out for snakes 🐍

Many years ago we fell for URBEX. "Urban exploration is the exploration of cities, factories or other objects that have been created by human activity. These are not museums or easily accessible objects, but rather objects that people cannot normally see. In most cases, urban exploration is dangerous and illegal because explorers have to overcome obstacles such as fences, crumbling buildings, security cameras or security guards." as Wikipedia says. It's not always that hot, you just have to be careful not to climb into any military installations. Climbing into an old, crumbling house that is left to nature has an absolutely amazing atmosphere. Awe and wonder, that's what the URBEX experience always brings out in me. I recommend ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This little house can be found on the right side of the road from Sao Vincente to Vargem. The access is worse, they really tried to make access impossible. You have to go around the house from the right side and enter the open entrance door from the back 🔑

In the Santana district you will find typical Madeiran shepherd's houses. Most of them can be found in the town of the same name Santana. Along the way, you'll see many of the original ones. The guides will lead you to this place, as they did us. Inside, you can buy some rubbish. The houses are nice, but I prefer the original ones. The interesting thing is that these houses are portable. When the cattle graze the surrounding grasses, the herder moves to another place with the cattle and the house (!). Cool 😂

We rested for two days, so on the 6th day we had to put the pedal to the metal again. We chose Levada PR1 from Pico Areeiro to Pico Ruivo. Absolute ceiling for the whole trip to Madeira. Such panoramas are really worth it and you can't miss this trek! Since we don't like people, we went very early in the morning, at sunrise. There are two ways to hike the Levada - a harder one and an easier one. We wanted to choose the harder and longer one, but unfortunately we learned on the spot (from other travelers - the signs don't say anything like that) that the harder path is buried and has been impassable for a long time. The shorter and easier path is still quite challenging - you're constantly going up and down in direct sunlight. Along the way you will encounter several tunnels, some of which are absolutely dark. Really fun! 😀

The journey is 6.1 km there and 6.1 km back. It took us 5 and a half hours including an hour rest at the top of Pico Ruivo ⛰

There was a slight illogicality in the sequence of our circuit for this trek. We had to drive quite a long way to reach Pico Areeiro, while we were a short distance from the PR9 levada. Therefore, we should have chosen the PR9 levada on this day and go to PR1 on day 8. It is hard to say how this anomaly came about. Probably because of how much we were looking forward to "pé er 1". Fortunately, everything in Madeira is relatively close by 🙈

After the performance, we were duly rewarded with a hotel Dom Pedro Madeira with a swimming pool and dinner at the beautiful Restaurante Mercado Velho Restaurante Mercado Velh, located within walking distance of the hotel. We had a steak which they bring you on a hot stone and you make it yourself - super fancy gastronomy 🍴 The next day we spent the morning by the pool and pool table and for lunch we chose the Gelati Machico patisserie where they have a really giant selection of pancakes, waffles, ice cream and everything else that way 🍧

We started the afternoon at the verlyb museum. It was only here that we learned how important a role verlyb hunting played in Madeira's history. It was fascinating to see what boats they used to catch whales with 100 years ago. Now, of course, it's unthinkable and we protect the whales. It was an impressive feat back then. And they had to make a living somehow. The museum is divided into two parts, chronologically. The first part is devoted to whaling and the second part is devoted to the current situation - how we protect whales. Nicely done, we definitely recommend a visit.

I consider the second ceiling of our trip to Madeira to be the left PR8 - Ponta de São Lourenço. A three-kilometre hike awaits you, with rock formations jutting out of the sea along the way, and at the end of it you'll find an inaccessible "pancake" in the sea, which we managed to stare at for an hour straight with our mouths open. Really beautiful 😍

The trek is a total of 6 km long and took us about 4 hours, even with the hour-long gawking at the end.

Eighth day, and it's off again! PR9 - Levada do Caldeirão Verde was waiting for us. This levada was the longest and probably the least interesting. You walk "in the woods" the whole time and don't enjoy many panoramas. The only really beautiful panorama you can see in all the photos is the one you can see in ours. It's about 5 meters long, unpaved part 😀 Levada in the first part has almost no elevation gain, you are still walking on the flat. It gets interesting at the last part, where there is a brutally steep staircase, then a couple of tunnels and a waterfall that drops right onto the road (this was the most interesting part of the whole trip for me). At the end of the path there is a small lake - more of a frog pond, where you can't take a bath and it doesn't look very inviting either. Next time I would choose a different levée. At the beginning of the trail (if you take the wrong path, like we did), you will encounter pigs. Those were awesome 🐽

In total, the levada is 17.4 km long and we walked it for 6 hours.

We had another good stay. Each floor is a different continent, the rooms are beautifully done. The maps, I can 😁

Well, we saved the highlight of the whole trip for the last day - whale and dolphin watching 🐳🐳🐳🐬🐬🐬. 

With these services, I always feel like there's about a 5% chance you'll see something. Of course, I had that feeling with this event as well. To my surprise, after about an hour of searching and picking up trash from the sea, we did indeed come across DELPHINES. Unbelievable to observe them in the open sea. The way it works is that the captain gets the boat going at quite a high speed, and the dolphins entertain themselves by jumping out and into the water right next to the boat at high speed. Some have jumped several metres into the air in big waves. A real treat! I don't know if we were that lucky or the odds are high in Madeira, but it was definitely worth a try. We didn't manage to capture it in photos, but check out the video! We didn't see any whales, but we were so blown away by the dolphins that we forgot all about it. At least we have a reason to come back to Madeira again sometime 😊

We were happy with our guides so we can recommend them. Just Whatsapp to make an appointment with them: +351 918 828 242