Days 24-31 (22nd to 29th Sept) - Madeira
Day 24 (22nd Sept) (7.61km) Sintra to Madeira: It is hard to understand how we walked so far on this day as almost all we did was catch a plane! It is amazing how far you walk in an airport though. My planes always seem to leave from the furthest gates. Again we hired a Bolt (Uber) to get to the airport rather than lug out big bags to and from train stations and buses. With four people it was definitely the way to go. Our plane was about an hour late leaving Lisbon but it really didn't make much difference to our day. We had been told that pilots need special training to land at Funchal airport on Madeira but our landing was so smooth it was hard to understand why it is meant to be so difficult. Apparently the crosswinds can be terrible. Madeira is where we were doing our next supported self-guided hiking trip. A driver took us to our first hotel and after a little rest we went out and explored the town of Santa Cruz, where we were staying for a coupl...