Madeira 1

For March I had booked a photo trip with Raik again with whom I had been in Norway (Lofoten) 1.5 years ago. I had never been to Madeira and I was curious. And after all my trips North I thought it was time to go South again. Everything pre-trip went well until I wanted to check in… although I had booked Business Class they put me on the waiting list. And of course I was frantic. And not understanding how it is possible to end up on the waiting list if you book a flight 8 months in advance. I went to Frankfurt the evening before the flight so I could check with early check-in but whatever I tried – I got the same answer everywhere ‚You have to wait at the gate and they will assign you a seat there.‘ Not very helpful for my nerves… 😉
Although I had passed at the train station at the airport in Frankfurt many, many times I had never noticed that there is a shopping center and several hotels. Since I stayed there for the night I could explore for the first time. The next morning I was at the gate early and when they opened the gate they asked a lot of people to come to the counter but I was not one of them. I went anyway and the guy gave me my boarding pass. Halleluja…. 😉 We figured out that all those people who had been requested to contact the gate were the people in Economy Class who had to move further back into the plane because they enlarged the Business-area of the plane. So I finally had my seat. Lesson learned: if you book a seat on a plane in Economy Class better don’t book the immediate rows behind Business Class. 😉 Once I was on the plane I got pampered by the crew and I felt well again. 🙂
At the airport in Funchal Raik was waiting for us. We went to the hotel and Raik gave us one hour before we left for the first foto session: sunset at Ponta do Sol. This is a nice village with a small beach which is bordered by cliffs. At one cliff there is a yellow building attached to the rocks and it is one of the best restaurants we ate at. So we had dinner there and afterwards we went down to the beach for the sunset. We were not the only ones… There was another foto-group that we met again the next morning. It was very windy and waves were high. That gave us special opportunities for our pics – but we had to be careful that the tripods were not blown over…. Here are the pics from the trip/first evening.