New Years Eve: Getting out of Funchal and Finally the Fireworks

 

 

 Seeing the volume of cruise ships in the harbour and having spent the previous 2 days in Funchal, we decided  that today was the day to get out of Funchal and explore more of Madeira.   Although the weather was dull and wet when we left Funchal,  arriving half an hour later on the other side of the island,  the weather was clear and sunny.  The views were spectacular and we spent much of the day travelling  from one amazing viewpoint to another interspersed with some country and forest walks in between.  

 

 

 It was lovely to be away from touristy  Funchal and be in the midst of beautiful  nature.  The only rather twee stop we had today was a brief stop in Santana to see examples of fairy-tale like traditional  homes and yet another nativity scene.

 

 

 

 

 

The main event - The fireworks

 The reason  we had chosen to come to Madeira was for the fireworks  so our expectations were high.
A couple of hours before midnight we ventured into town hoping to soak up some of the pre fireworks atmosphere.  Amazingly given the number of cruise ships that were now docked and the amount of tourists as well as local people here for the fireworks,  the town centre itself seemed a little subdued to us and despite the pretty lights, a few bands, food stalls that almost exclusively sold the local flat bread "bolo do caco",  tonight seemed no different to the previous few nights other than there was an even longer queue to see the nativity scene.  Surprisingly  there was a lack of party atmosphere  so we returned to our apartment, which had a roof top terrace overlooking the sea, in order to wait for the fireworks.

 

Earlier today a local man had told us that the fireworks display lasts 8 minutes   I was shocked, surely he meant 80 or even 18 minutes,  I couldn't have travelled all this way just for 8 minutes . It suddenly  dawned on me that I had not checked how long the display was due to last but I would have assumed substantially  more than 8 minutes! John tried to reassure me by saying that it is the quality and not quantity that is important.   Well these fireworks better be out of the world!

 

At 11pm, we stood on our roof terrace which had a panoramic view and we began to see fireworks taking off intermittently all round the island.  Some appeared tiny as they were so far away whilst others seemed much closer.  As it got closer to midnight more and more fireworks could be seen exploding around the island, some near, some very distant. The cruise boats were all lit up and began their less than melodic horn chorus.  Finally at midnight an almighty  explosion of noise and colour erupted in front of our eyes and as we turned around to view the island the same choreographed  fireworks came at us from all directions. It was like we were standing right in the middle as the fireworks came towards us from all around and exploded in a riot of colour and noise in front of us.  We could see, hear and also feel in our bodies the impact of these incredible explosions.  It was like they were here just for us.  They did indeed last just 8 minutes and although we didn't want this experience to end, it did feel like much longer.

 

Finally they were over and we looked at each other in amazement.  "Wow" was all we could say.  We have seen many excellent  firework displays in our life but this was without  a doubt the most amazing display of fireworks ever and Madeira does indeed deserve the reputation  for hosting the best firework display in the world.

 

Many thanks to our friends Teresa & Brian for sharing this wonderful experience in Madeira with us.