Monte Tropical Gardens

We’ve had a lovely day, walking miles on hilly cobbled streets. Funchal is definitely very hilly!

However, I have only just blipped yesterday’s ’doors’ which are worth a look if you’ve time.

Today we took a cable car up Monte, where we visited some truly spectacular tropical gardens, also incorporating a surprisingly large mineral collection. I’m talking amethyst geodes of 1m x 50cm!

We took another cable car down another gully to the botanic gardens (loved the cacti), and later we rode in a wooden sledge back half way down to the town centre, which was unusual and quite fun. Two steerers set us off by pulling the sledge with ropes, then once we were going downhill at some speed they hopped on the back. It was a very steep descent but just on a normal road with cars, (hairy).

The tropical gardens were in a steep sided gully and on an impressive scale and super well tended, yet maintaining a natural feel. I may have taken 1-2 photos lol.

Amongst the extras there’s a tree that looks like a boabab but it’s an olive, reputedly planted in 300BC!

Oh and I have a monarch butterfly in the proper camera to upload too