If you can't stand the heat....don't sit in the sun for so long!!!

If we needed a soundtrack for our first Tuesday in Madeira, it would most probably have been as follows: -

1. Making your mind up - Bucks Fizz
2. Swim - Madonna
3. Burn baby burn - The Trammps
4. The long and winding road - Beatles
5. Take it easy - Eagles
6. Theme tune from Schindler's list - John Williams

We started with breakfast, that included everything that you could have asked for, including champagne for making bucks fizz, and then went for a tour of the Spa.

The hotel has a number of different pools, as well as a jetty and small pontoon to swim out to, and so we did a spot of sunbathing and then swimming in the sea, which even this virtually non-swimmer blogger was able to enjoy, due to the buoyancy of the very salty sea water. Having now washed all remaining traces of sun cream off we then had a little more time in the sun, to ensure that we would be able to achieve that very special shade of red - known in artists' circles as 'Burnt Skin'!!

We then took a stroll into town. Our travel rep (who was called Jesus, and who was actually a woman!), told us that there were two routes into town - which I shall for evermore describe as the "straight" route and the "alternative" route. Teresa, however describes them as the "right" route and the "wrong" route - guess which one I chose?

On the way back - we only had time for an ice-cream in Funchal! - we stopped to buy some water, as we were now dehydrating, and some cheap wine. The water was good value, as it tasted of water. The wine may have been good value, it's just that I don't know how much paint thinners usually costs.....!

In the evening we had a cocktail party, where we spent as much time as we could avoiding a couple from Poland who were getting very slowly drunk - how Eastern European, you'd never hic, catch us hic, doing that...hic...hic...!

Then a light evening meal and a relatively early night - where I spent a number of hours looking at my glow-in-the-dark legs!

One little thing I noticed in the hotel was that the company who made the elevators is "Schindlers", so each day we go up and down in Schindlers' lifts!!!