Sept. 12 - Travel Day

“We travel because we need to, because distance and difference are the secret tonic to creativity.” -Anonymous

We began our vacation a day early by flying into JFK from Ithaca yesterday. The JFK Airport is located in Queens on Long Island...so this was a less stressful way to begin our adventure. We stayed at the TWA Hotel located in the old TWA terminal, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Eero Saarinen's 1962 TWA Flight Center serves as the lobby of the TWA Hotel. You feel as if you've been transported back to the 1960 when you enter this hotel. It was a fun place to stay and everything went very smoothly on Wednesday. 

Ithaca International Airport

The TWA Hotel

Inside the Connie Lounge.

Dinner at the Paris Café.

Adventure only occurs when things don't go as planned. Maybe fate led us to accept the upgrade our airline made available to us to Madeira. It was a bonus because our flight was delayed over five hours and we were able to enjoy the Air France lounge. We actually left the hotel as soon as we were up and ready this morning so we could hang out and enjoy their buffet. Little did we know we would spend most of the day hanging out there.  

We were supposed to leave at 11:50. We finally took off about 5:30. The plane had mechanical issues and they had to get another plane for our flight. Thank goodness for our upgrade. The upgrade also made our six hour flight extremely comfortable...meals and drinks included.

Our meals

My space

Madeira is a small island and has very limited flat space. For that reason when they enlarged the runway at the Madeira Airport they had to build it on a bridge extending into the sea. The bridge measures 590' wide and 3/4 of a mile long. The total runaway is 1.72 miles...doesn't seem like it leaves a lot of room for error. We came in at night, which might have been a good thing. I'm not sure I'd want to see this landing.

Finally in Madeira.

We're spending our first five nights in Old Town (Zona Velha) in Funchal. We have a nice little apartment close to the water and not too far from the Mercado dos Lavradores (Farmers Market). We should be able to do a lot of exploring of Funchal and the southern coast from here.