We had a slow start to the day and pondered what to do on our final day given the poor weather outlook. We were leaning towards doing some indoor attractions in the city (mainly museums) but were not persuaded by the reviews so opted instead for a trip back up the hill to Monte and a visit to the Palace Gardens.
The trip itself to get there was really interesting because we decided to go by public bus. We took the first bus down to the centre of Funchal and then transferred to another bus which took us up the winding roads to Monte, giving great views down over the city. We needed to stand for most of the journey uphill and you really had to hang on tight as it swung from left to right along the twisty roads. I was quite pleased that I hadn’t had a full fry up!!!
Once we got to the top, we had a short stroll to the gardens. Extract from tourism website: Open to the public since 1991, the Monte Palace Madeira occupies an area of 70.000 square meters and houses a huge 
exotic plant’s collection, coming from all over the world, together with swans,ducks and Koi fish. The Monte Palace Museum is an ideal exhibition space nestled within the beautiful surroundings of a tropical garden. There are three floors, two of which are dedicated to sculptures and the third houses a unique mineral collection gathered from the four corners of the world. Monte Palace Madeira, also includes one of the most important tile collections in Portugal. The tiles exhibited amidst the tropical vegetation represent several ages, coming from palaces, churches, chapels and private houses throughout the former Portuguese empire.
The first thing we saw was an olive tree dating back to 300BC followed by some beautiful tile paintings detailing the history of Portugal. These were on display within the gardens and pretty much everywhere you looked in fact had tiles or sculptures as well as the beautiful plants.
We then headed across to the Japanese garden and on the way saw another exhibit which gave information about the history of the relationship between Portugal and Japan.
There were some interesting sculptures and koi carp one of the ponds. I (Sue) took a detour along the top level to see the beautiful examples of Portuguese tile work which were displayed in the open within the gardens along the top level. Some of these were reproductions but many of them were original tiles from previous centuries covering a wide range of designs and typical motifs.
As well as a mind-boggling array of trees and plants, we also saw some flamingos strutting their stuff, swans and several peacocks. The first part of our trip was relatively dry and warm – this was a bonus given the weather forecast!
As we ventured further down the hill, however, the wind and rain got worse and worse so we managed to find shelter in a café at the bottom of the gardens, where we stopped for coffee and custard tarts. The bonus here was the live music which is available every lunchtime. For us it was a Portuguese duo of guitarist and singer who were playing one of my favourite tracks, the girl from Ipanema.
After this break, we strolled past the palace back up the hill where we went into the Secrets of Nature mineral display which was quite impressive and beautifully presented using elements of the garden to make some of the minerals appear that they were in their natural environment. The close-ups pictured below are amethyst, quartz and jasper.
Although it was a shame about the weather, we felt that the whole garden visit was really great value for money as there was so much to see. In addition to the elements mentioned above, there were many statues scattered around the gardens, family shields of prominent Portuguese families and finally the contemporary art museum back near the entrance which we had saved until last to shelter from the rain!!! There were some carvings each made from a single piece of a sequoia tree from within the gardens – with Dave added for scale. 🤣
We got a taxi back to the hotel as it was blowing a gale and raining! We chilled out and watched some tele before going out to dinner. We met a nice Texan couple (luckily not MAGA fans) and had a lovely meal of shrimps and fennel (which the city is named after) and fish skewers.
Back to the UK tomorrow and 19 degrees!