This small owner run establishment was recommended to us by friends in Jersey who had stayed here a number of times and we were not disappointed. The rooms, although small, were clean and well maintained and those with a balcony have a great view over Funchal down to the harbour. The breakfast menu was very flexible, one is not constrained to a continental menu, so eggs and bacon and toast and marmalade were readily available!
The owners, Agostino and his wife Katerina, laid on a special buffet with drinks for New Years eve on the terrace where we were joined by other guests and family members to watch the fantastic firework display. All this at no extra cost, Madeiran hospitality at its best.
Funchal, with many restaurants, is within walking distance,and an excellent bus service enables one to see the rest of this beautifull island.
There is just one snag to this establishment, because of the number of regular clients one has to book very early in order to get a room at the preferred date!

Normally I would not write about a holiday spent two years ago, but in this case I'd like to comment on this cheap but not very inviting hotel which we stayed at in May / June 2004. We booked this hotel with a German travel agency which had some problems in getting everything right, so it was a bad start. But the hotel did fit this bad start by showing several flaws of its own.

The double room which we stayed in was very small. Equipment was rather old. There was an old rug in the room which was dark from old dirt. The lamp on one side of the bed was badly isolated, so if you tried to turn on the light in the night you would feel strong static energy when touching the base of the lamp by accident (which was some way of really getting awake). The bathroom was rather spartan; toilet paper seemed to have been rationed. The room had one window to the street. The hotel is situated at a rather steeply inclining street, therefore traffic noise was rather loud (cars accelerating for the incline) and you always smelled the cars' exhaust fumes through the window.

Breakfast was nothing special, but on the plus side you could have it on the terrace. On the minus side all the butter, cheese, sausages that were not consumed on one morning and therefore had been lying in the sun for some time were again offered the next morning for breakfast - and clearly showed their sun exposure of the previous day.

One day we asked if we could have breakfast early because we were planning a trip by ferry to Porto Santo (which you shouldn't miss, by the way, it's a great trip). We were promised we would find some cold food in the morning prepared for us. But then they forgot to prepare anything. The morning after our trip we were a little late after our long, tiring (and breakfast-free) trip and arrived at 9:55 for breakfast (breakfast is served up to 10 o'clock) but we were intentionally ignored by the waitress / co-owner of the hotel and had to leave the breakfast room after 15 minutes - again without breakfast - without the waitress talking with us or even looking at us. (We had seen other guests being served breakfast even at 10:15 some days before, therefore 9:55 was not an unusual time to arrive.) The next day I returned the ignoring by not greeting anyone of the hotel owners - which at least resulted in an excuse for the breakfast not prepared the morning of our day trip. But all these events did lead to a fairly unpleasant atmosphere during our whole stay.

What can we say about Funchal and Madeira in general? There are a lot of good and inexpensive restaurants there, and you should definitely have the fish, even if you do not like fish in general. Funchal is very crowded, there is a lot of traffic in many narrow streets and you can always smell the cars going by. But there are also some beautiful places like the Botanical Garden which are fun to visit. Going along the coast or inland is rewarding, so you can enjoy some beautiful vistas. Everywhere you can find beautiful flowers and exotic plants. Therefore Madeira was worth the visit, but this hotel was definitely not.