I am going to Madeira ! Really ! Today :)

Here in Romania, fall has arrived, pretty depressing for some, cold days, sometimes gloomy ones… And as I, myself, am in not such a good mood, you cannot even realize how well it fitted this new blog trip invitation to see a new place. More than that, it will certainly be warmer and hopefully, sunny. A place I have never been before, but in a country I visited lots of times, last time a month and something ago… I am talking about the Madeira Island, in Portugal!

At the time when you will be reading these sentences, I will either be on a plane, flying towards Lisbon (then, further on towards Madeira) or I will be already there in the middle of the Atlantic. To be 100% fair, I have seen Madeira only from an airplane when I was coming back from the Tenerife heading towards Madrid few years ago…a tall peak, apparently volcanic was breaking through a serious white, fluffy cloud ceiling and on planes screens, I discovered we were passing next to Madeira. Honestly, I haven’t read much about Madeira (I only know it is more abrupt than Tenerife and that it has a spectacular airport), so I am open to discover it without many before hand information.

For the ones that do not know, Madeira is a lost island somewhere in the Atlantic, somewhere on the same line with Marrakech. It was colonized by the Portuguese some centuries ago when the Portuguese sailors disembarked after a storm. Disembarked, seen, liked. A year later, in the 1420 the first colonists arrived, falling in love with the climate of this island, so they remained here. Meanwhile Madeira developed, took advantage of the fact that it was an important transit point for the Portuguese vessels and today it receives no less than 1 million tourists yearly that are looking for sea, sun and fun … even in the middle of the winter. That’s why Madeira is one of the wealthiest regions in Portugal, the second one after Lisbon in terms of GDP (and one of the few regions in Portugal that has a GDP per inhabitant a little over the average of the European Union!).

What is Madeira famous for? For a lot of things…for natural beauties, for the wine, for the poncho (I understand it is some sort of a rum with lemon juice) and for the fireworks (the one that took place on the 2006 New Year’s entered the World Record Book as the best fireworks show in the world!). Among the historical personalities linked to the history of the island one won’t find any Portuguese kings, but rather the last Habsburg emperor of the Austro-Hungary, Carol the First, who succeeded Franz Joseph in 1916. In 1918 after the disintegration of Austro-Hungary, he has been exiled by the Allies to Madeira, where he also found his death.

There will be some full days – we will visit historical places, but we will also have some walks through the nature, we will go by ferry on the little island of Porto Santo, a small island located at about 80 km away from Madeira, trek, visit hotels and many other things. As I will have internet access in the evening, I will obviously show some of the wonders from here and I will tell you all about it when I come back!

Amongst you is there anybody who visited Madeira? What shouldn’t I miss on the island (I will also have free time in my schedule)?

And because I go to Madeira as a guest, I think is nice to thank the ones that invited me here, in the western extremity of Europe – the Portuguese airline company TAP Portugal and the travel agency Top Atlantico Madeira.