Flying to Madeira

Saturday
When we come over to England to see the family, we usually try and fit in a trip to Europe, and this year our destination is the Portuguese island of Madeira. Janet and John will be back tomorrow, so Bernard will just be on his own for a little over a day. Our flight wasn’t until mid afternoon, so we called in at Bernard’s about 11am and had a coffee, then set off for Manchester airport, just about 20 minutes away. We had a good flight and thankfully a pretty good landing. Madeira airport is renowned for being a difficult place to land, since the runway’s position, right up against the mountains, tends to lead to unpredictable and gusty winds. Apparently pilots have to undertake additional training to land there! This was the first time we had flown with Jet2, but we were really quite impressed, the staff at Manchester were very friendly and helpful, likewise the stewardesses. My collage shows, starting from the top left and going clockwise, taking off from Manchester, passing the island of Porto Santo as we were approaching Madeira, the easternmost peninsula of Madeira, and the last 2 the final approach into Madeira. We had arranged a taxi to take us to our hotel, right in the centre of Funchal, since we shan’t be renting a car for the first few days. The hotel is great, and after getting our stuff up to our room, we went down to the bar to get a drink and a snack, the restaurant being closed by this time.