"Madeira!" "Wood!" The cry went up from Portuguese sailors in the service of Prince Henry the Navigator during the explorations of the 15th century. The tall, straight tree trunks of the primeval laurisilva forst on this Atlantic island would be ideal for ship's masts and other repairs.
Madeira is a volcanic island and level ground is at a premium. Most of the hotels are perched on cliff tops just outside the city, on beautiful quintas or estates, commanding spectacular views over the Atlantic. A downside is that their guests rely on hotel shuttles public buses to get in and out of the city centre. Our hotel, by contrast, was one of the few at sea level. We were within a few steps of the Old Town with its dozens of restaurants and could easily walk along the seafront to the marina or into the historic city centre.
"The Floating Garden" of Madeira is indeed a gardener's paradise. We visited the famous Botanic Gardens above the city, braving the public buses whose neighbours have nerves of steel as they negotiate vertiginous hairpin bends. Another horticultural treat was the Monte Palace Tropical Gardens. The cable car provided spectacular views along its 3km length, before depositing us outside the gardens high up on the mountainside. Areas of the gardens have different themes, all highly photogenic. I enjoyed the stretch of laurasilva forest, as exploited by those fifteenth-century sailors and others. The famous basket toboggans leave from the Monte hilltop but, it being Sunday when we visited, they were not operating. Unlike recent UK military campaigns, an exit strategy is essential if you fancy hurtling down on a toboggan. There is no public transport at the end of the run. Taxi drivers will take you at a price either down to the bottom or back up to the cable car.
From our hotel, you could walk along the front to the marina and cruise terminal, or up to the historical city centre. Madeira is a popular cruise destination - indeed, my son and his girlfriend had visited it as such and guessed correctly that it would appeal to us. During our stay, Italian and German cruise ships docked. Passengers disembarking from cruise ships are greeted by the CR7 Museum which features the trophies of one Cristiano Ronaldo, Madeira's most famous son. There is also a statue of "The World's Most Famous Footballer" which provokes giggles when you mention it to the local people. You will have to see for yourself!
The historic centre contains many churches, convents and museums as well as pleasant bars and restaurants. We visited Blandy's Wine Lodge to learn about the manufacture of Madeira wine. The Farmer's Market looked like a huge Art Deco cinema and showcased many local exotic flowers and fruits.
Our Thomson rep held the traditional information meeting on the first morning, largely for the purposes of selling excursions. Someone from hotel management also turned up and offered us 40 euros to come on the guided tour of their other hotel development on the island.
We booked the day trip around the west of the island. Our first stop was at the sea cliffs of Cabo Girão, with its scary glass-bottomed viewing platform. After morning coffee at the seaside village of Ribeira Brava, we continued our tour along tortuous and ever-rising roads, observing the levadas, or irrigation channels. Numerous walking trails follow these channels. The Madeiran crop par excellence is the banana. We walked through a banana plantation and had the cultivation process explained. Lunch was at the Cachalote restaurant in Porto Moniz, the name ("sperm whale") being a nod to the region's whaling history. "Coach trip" lunches can be mediocre, but this one was not bad at all, although I could have done without the girl in traditional costume posing with every tourist for a photo opportunity. Porto Moniz is famous for its natural saltwater pools carved out of basalt rocks at the headland. Lunch was followed by another picturesque village in the afternoon. In Funchal, we had a huge number of reasonably-priced restaurants to choose from. Someone was generally outside exhorting you to come in, but they were perfectly courteous and I developed a knack of avoiding eye contact. We ate fish seven nights out of seven - scabbard fish, cod, salmon, swordfish, tuna, parrot fish and maybe more. A couple of the restaurants offered fado music, one of my favourites. A singer sings of love and loss, of the men far away on the fishing boats, accompanied by the Portuguese guitar and the classical Spanish guitar.
We thoroughly enjoyed Madeira and are planning at least one return trip. The eastern side of the island is waiting to be explored, not to mention some of those fish restaurants and Madeira wine lodges. And I will have to listen to Gardener's Question Time more attentively in the meantime.
First published in VISA 130 (December 2016)
