Vivenda Avista Navios Apartments

3 readers found this review helpful

Flight was so smooth/aeroplane was clean/so attractive and staff attentive/transfer to apartment was swift as it was very hot then. Our apartment was in the residential [part of Funchal and high up. The house owner was there to greet and gave us maps and showed us services and our way around.
We a had a big 2 bed roomed apartment with hallways and separate bathroom and kitchen living room with spare bed if we needed it. The balcony and lounge room looked over the mountains and down to the sea front. The pool was so clean and blue and well provided with lingers etc. We were a mother, grandmother and 3/5 and 7 year olds so it wasn’t easy. Children were feted by the Portuguese and showed us where to find the lido etc and play parks.
The taxi driver who adopted us took us to special places for the children and we had 2 wonderful days sight seeing/mountains and waterfalls and a science park. We loved Funchal and the 2 shopping centers we went to Madeira and the Forum so clean cheap and well served. We loved the exotic foods/the Caribbean nuances/ the Brazilian influence and we learned about the farming and crop growing and husbandry an flowers form the taxi driver who became a friend. We went to the market in Funchal and sampled exotic unknown fruits to us, we went to the Jardun Botanique and were blown away by the rarity of the parrots and other exotic birds/we loved being taking to the natural pools and the highest points etc and Macchita.
The world cup was on and we enjoyed watching the Portuguese celebrating their victory at our expense! We appreciated the cleanliness/ the cater for the environment/ the amount of schools and colleges/and the public amenities for the population that were free or so cheap. It was an exotic island and an experience that we were not expecting. We did walk and walks and exhausted ourselves and the children but its the way to see the streets the local shops and the amazing designer stores and furniture and interior design stores etc.
It was a very learning 2 weeks that we would all like to repeat - thank you Madeira - we loved the language and thought it was a cross between French and Russian.