Together with my two children, Alexander 13 years and Nina 9 years I made a combined vacation and birding tour to Madeira. We flew from Malmö-Sturup airport to Funchal, Madeira with Solresor travel agency. The flight took 4:20 hours. We bought the trip on the Internet (on the very good site for finding low fare travels: solfaktor.com). We paid 891 € (8067 SKr) in total and that included a regular hotel (Estrelicia) double room and breakfast.
We rented a Renault Clio through the Internet in advance on Avis. It cost us 195 € (1765 SKr) for a week including free mileage, insurance and self reduction.
The weather was quite rainy and windy for two days and with showers and sun the others. Temperatures were around 16 at the coast but once in the mountains even below zero with snow. Travelling with two children and only my son with birding as an interest, made us not birding 100%, but were also doing some more typical tourist activities.
In total 33 bird species were seen. We, Stefan Cherrug and Per Anders Bertilsson, made a birding trip to Madeira 2nd to 9th August 2005 staying at Florasol hotel, Funchal. We travelled with Solresor from Malmö airport for 5738 SEK per person (610 €) food on the aircraft excluded. The flight took 3 hours 15 minutes.
We rented a new Ford Fiesta with air conditioning (but with a fairly weak engine) through Economy Car rentals (https://www.economycarrentals.com/) in advance. The rental included insurance and free mileage and the car was delivered at our hotel. The cost was 211 € (1980 SEK).
On Madeira we participated in a guided tour to Pico de Areiro, an evening sea trip with Ventura do Mar off Funchal and we made a day trip to Porto Santo. The guided tour to Pico de Areiro costs 60 € per person (including a 20 € fee for entering the park) the evening trip with Ventura do Mar was 37 €, and the trip to Porto Santo 47 €.
The weather was sunny to partly cloudy with temperatures around 27 °C in the afternoon and 20 °C in the nights. In all 46 bird species were seen.
Birds
63 images
Crustaceans
2 images
Plants
4 images
People and places
43 images
Madeira 20050222-0301, 0802-10