We learned a couple of things about weather at Madeira, one we knew and one we didn’t. First of all, Madeira has several micro-climates. It can be pouring down rain in one part of the island, and sunny in another.

Given that all three weather apps we consult for our photography excursions were showing one final day of clear skies followed by 7 days (i.e. until after we have to leave) of rain, Ann and I decided we should select a levada hike to take. Most of the hikes involve moderate, with occasional steep sections to hike, which generally isn’t a problem, but they’re mostly on well-polished stones, which is an issue when its wet.

The next stage of our trip was moving locations from our Airbnb in Funchal to the one in Seixal in the north (closer to the Fanal Forest among other things).  Given our respective check-out and check-in times, we took our time driving along the south and west coasts (after a stop at a bigger grocery store for foodstuffs) and the first of several great lunches in Ponta do Pargo.