Continuing with the day trip around Madeira … after Pico de Arieiro, the bus took us north to reach the other side of the island (relative to the main city of Funchal) and started to climb again as it headed west. See the cliff on the right ? Remember that there were houses on top.
In this photo, the houses on the cliff were at about the same elevation as our tour bus – but we were separated by a valley.
The picture below is not taken from a plane but from the bus about 8 minutes after I took the picture above. You may recognize the same string of houses that are built on a cliff. That’s how far the bus had climbed!
In the above photo, the eastern tip of the island is clearly visible. The landscape is beautiful and dramatic.
Santana is one of the bigger village/city on the north shore. We stopped there to visit the traditional small thatched triangular houses – they were a bit touristy but cheerful.
From Santana, we went along the shore in a east-to-west direction. We stopped at Beira de Quinta – one of the most beautiful view points.
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Beira da Quinta overlooks Arco de São Jorge which is situated on a plateau next to the ocean.
The view at Beira de Quinta is stunning – even having a wide angle lens on the camera, it was not possible to capture the vastness of open space that was in front of us here – the open Atlantic Ocean on the right, and on the other side an arc of a mountain sits behind a plateau, casting a shadow on half of the plateau with terra-cotta roofed houses.
Looking further west.
After the view point, the bus descended onto the plateau and continued along a road that runs along the cliff. Our destination for lunch is at Sao Vicente, located roughly in the middle of the north shore.
The restaurant is situated right by the ocean at the base of a cliff and it has a gimmick.
The dining room rotates very slowly – about one revolution per hour so that all the diners have a chance to be seated at the waterfront.
For lunch, we were served fried black scabbardfish fish (I think) and fried banana, and Madeira wine of course.
Pictures of the trip continue in our next post.