Pestana Dom Joao II Village, Portimao

Advantages: beautiful;, fascinating, reasonable, the coffins
Disadvantages: chrage for toilet and church, museum and website only in German

...was the only one powerful enough to look at the devil in the face. Once you have taken in the brilliance of the Dom take a walk around the cathedral. Underneath the organ are three sarcophagi of important members of the Hohenzollern dynasty. On the left the ornately decorated sarcophagus of the seventeenth century Great elector Wilhelm Friedrich who liberated the Prussians from Swedish rule, as illustrated by he men in chains at the foot of the coffin. Next to him is his wife Dorethea. Looking to the right you can see the oldest and newest funeral monuments in the cathedral. The first is the very plain wooden sarcophagus of Johann Cicero dating from the late 15th century. Next to it is the coffin of Friedrich II the second last ruler of the Hohenzollern dynasty who only reigned for 99 day before he died and Kaiser Wilhelm II took over... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Informal, clean, decent food, right near the beach
Disadvantages: Hideously expensive bar and wines

...We stayed at the Pestana Bay "Aparthotel" four-star hotel in Funchal (the capital of Madeira) in August 2005 and I'm happy to recommend it to anyone reading this. It was clean, conveniently placed (i.e right near the beach and with a nearby bus stop for trips into town), not too formal or "stiff upper lip" and the breakfasts were pretty good. COSTS: We paid just over £500 each including flights, for a 2-week stay in August, which we thought was pretty good value given that it's not the cheapest of locations. This included buffet breakfast each morning. The bar is expensive and probably best avoided if you need to watch the euros- we paid something like 10 euros for a Southern Comfort and coke, and a small bottle of beer. There are plenty of bars in Funchal where you can get the same drinks for under four euros, so I would advise... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Good rooms, helpful staff, free bus into town
Disadvantages: Its a bus ride from town.

...We booked a last minute holiday in Madeira in september 2007 and on the advice of our agent decided to go for the Pestana Grand hotel. The hotel was rated as a 5 star by our agent although this site rightly has it as a four-star. We booked on a bed & breakfast basis and with flights and transfers It cost us about £650 each for the week . On arrival the reception staff were very helpful and spoke excellent English. We had been booked into a mountain view room and asked if we could upgrade to a sea view. This was no problem for, I think, an extra £20 per night. This was well worth it as we noticed that the mountain view rooms all overlooked the car park. The view was excellent from our room and we could see people fishing from small boats, the hotel gardens and pools and people walking along the promenade which takes you from the hotel... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful