Being a volcanic island with deep sea all around there ought to be no sandy beaches in Madeira but in a couple of places they have imported sand from Morocco which they prevent from being washed away with a breakwater. The one pictured above is no where near hotel central where the inmates have to make do with sitting next to a swimming pool or a pebble beach.
I understand that in Bishop’s Castle it was warm and sunny today, here it was raining first thing. In order to keep dry we decided to visit the inside of a volcano, some supposedly interesting caves on the other side of the island but when we arrived the curator said we would be unable to go underground due to an earthquake and covid! I am not sure of the connection, being triple inoculated I am fairly relaxed about covid but an earthquake does seem a little more worrying.
So we had to make do with a not very good exhibition all about volcanos which included a film which must have been 30 years old with appalling subtitles but I must say the picture of the eruption in Indonesia with the car driving away looked exciting.
It was also the last time we have driven the 20 miles along the coast before turning up into the mountains, those 20 miles are almost all spent in tunnels. We have got the impression that the Madeira Government bought a big tunnelling machine and trained a gang to drive it to dig some tunnels to bypass the city. Once that was done they carried on using the machine to keep the gang employed or justify the capital cost, there are tunnels everywhere, many several miles long. There are even tunnels replacing those which are only 20 or so years old.
A couple of hours later the rain stopped and we did our last Madeira walk along another water course so nice and flat. We were at 3000ft and just below the clouds, from our vantage point we could see the sunshine on the coast below.
Tomorrow, our last full day, will be spent doing all the touristy things you are supposed to do on a trip to Madeira. But we probably not bother with visiting CR7, a museum dedicated to the patron saint of Madeira, Cristiano Ronaldo, and his 7 European Footballer of the Year awards.