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My travel in Europe:
Madeira, a Portuguese island, 2019

Content:

Day III, Monte palace Tropical Garden and fortress Santiago:

Even this day we visit a park, later when back in Funchal we visit the fortress Santiago which is placed at the Eastern coast of Funchal.

Google Map over today visits:

Other than the visit to the park, most walks nearby our hotel.

Funchal:

We started slowly in the morning and leave our hotel about 1 pm, we had some work and Spanish and French lessons to do first.

We walk down to the harbor and on the way we pass a Electrical Museum, interesting for me. When looking through the windows I see old power meters, similar to the ones I saw in my work at the 1970s, they where old already in those days. The last days of our visit in Funchal I planned to visit the museum, but then it was closed.

At this place the original power station was built in 1897. The generator was powered of a 35 hp steam machine.

Passing the ruins once again, have a look at the white house in the background, why? I tell later.

The old defense wall.

Jump on bus 22 that take us up to Monte and the park we shall visit today.

A dog watching us.

As you see it's very steep here.

Almost at Monte where the botanical gardens is, we have great views through the bus windows.

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Monte:

End station for the bus, 550 meters above sealevel.

An alternative to the bus is to take the cable car.

There are two cable cars here, this is the small one.

The main cable car, about ten years old.

Monte is very famous for there basket cars or toboggan run. We couldn't see anything of that, maybe to early. I have some photos from these when my father visited Madeira in the 1980s. I put them here later.

At Madeira Web you find information about Monte Toboggan rides:

https://www.madeira-web.com/en/ things-to-do/ leisure-activities/ land/ monte-toboggan.html (Monte Toboggan, Madeira Web)

Monte Palace Tropical Gardens:

Here we have the entrance to the Monte Palace Tropical Gardens.

At Wikipedia you find more information about Monte:

https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Monte (Funchal) (Monte Funchal, Wikipedia)

We started our walk in the garden at the top, the entrance is about in the middle.

It looks a little bit inspired of the Asian culture.

A lot of water flow in this ravine and everything is like a green jungle.

We follow the walkways down in the valley.

We walked around here and took a lot of photos.

The park is divided in different areas that belongs to different parts of the world.

Included in the ticket was a small glass of vine. This restaurant is placed at the bottom part of the park. Our plan was to leave the garden here, but there was no exit and we had to walk back up to the top again. There was a shortcut so it was not very long way to walk, but steep.

View from the restaurant.

Same bus as we came with, now back to Funchal.

Funchal:

After we jump of the bus we had a short walk back to the hotel. On the walk we find this house that was for sale.

After a short visit at the hotel we walked to the center of Funchal. We took a rest at a cafe and planned what's left of the day. We decided to walk through the Old Center.