Kindle Notes & Highlights
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December 7 - December 16, 2022
Begun in 1493 and completed in 1517, the cathedral is one of the few buildings in Funchal to survive from the early days of colonisation.
Museu Fotographia Vicentes (http://photographiamuseuvicentes.gov-madeira.pt; temporarily closed for renovation) with photographs reflecting 150 years of island life.
Museu de História Natural (www.cm-funchal.pt; Tue–Sun 10am–6pm), another 18th-century aristocratic home converted into a museum. On the ground floor is a modest aquarium showing Madeira’s sealife, while upstairs you will find an old-fashioned collection of stuffed local sea and land creatures.
The market marks the start of the Zona Velha G [map] (Old Town).
The nearby CR7 Museum (https://museucr7.com; Mon–Sat 10am–6pm) dedicated to Cristiano Ronaldo, who was born on the island, is a must for all football fans.
Jardim Orquídea (Pregetter’s Orchid Garden; www.madeira-orchid.eu). Sadly, the garden was badly damaged by fires in 2016, with the loss of more than 50,000 plants, and is currently closed.
For brakes they use the rubber soles of their boots.
They used to have to walk back up the hill, carrying or pushing the 68kg (150lb) sleds, but nowadays they do the journey by truck.
Cabo Girão 5 [map]. One of the highest cliffs in the world, it plummets 590 metres (1,900ft) to the Atlantic. The views east and west along the coast are sensational. There’s a terrifying, exhilarating viewpoint, where you stand on a glass floor,
Museu Etnográfico da Madeira (Madeira Ethnographic Museum; Tue–Fri 9.30am–5pm, Sat–Sun 10am–12.30pm, 1.30–5.30pm) is an excellent introduction to the fishing, farming and wine-making traditions that still just about survive in Madeira’s more remote outposts.
Bananas are big business along the south coast of Madeira
Calheta has been the beneficiary of substantial tourism investment, with a large artificial-sand beach,
Rabaçal 9 [map], a beautiful valley popular among Madeirans at weekends and holidays. This is the starting point for a couple of spectacular levada walks.
A tongue of volcanic lava flowed into the Atlantic thousands of years ago; it cooled and was carved by the sea into a series of protected natural pools.
São Vicente @ [map], perhaps the prettiest village on the island,
Madeira is known for its microclimates. Even though it’s a small island, the weather can change several times over the course of the day, or if you move just 5km (3 miles). Clouds come and go with great alacrity, so don’t despair if a day starts overcast
Pousada dos Vinháticos (a vinhático is a type of Madeiran mahogany tree) with fabulous mountain views. It is the perfect place for lunch on the terrace, but many visitors, especially those with hiking on their minds, find it an ideal place to stay several days.
Pico do Arieiro £ [map] Madeira’s third-highest mountain, and its summit is reachable by car.
Pico Ruivo, the ‘rooftop of Madeira’, is only fractionally higher than Pico do Arieiro, but much less accessible. The peak can be reached by a walk of approximately one hour from Achada do Teixeira in the north, or the classic but strenuous four-hour round-trip hike from Pico do Arieiro.
Cut no more than 50cm (20 ins) wide, and set 30–60cm (1–2ft) into the ground, levadas run more than 2,100km (1,300 miles) around Madeira and have been here almost as long as the island has been settled.
Thatched houses of a larger, more conventional kind are to be found 5km (3 miles) south of Santana, in Queimadas, a complex of cottage-style rest houses with attractive gardens, set in the midst of Unesco-listed forest.
village of Santo da Serra ^ [map] can be reached via Camacha or from the Poiso crossroads. The altitude of 670 metres (2,200ft) produces refreshing breezes, and explains why several wealthy British expats have chosen to build quintas here and why so many affluent Madeirans still flee the Funchal summer up into these hills.
Machico & [map] is Madeira’s first settlement, the spot where João Gonçalves Zarco first came ashore in 1419.
125-metre long Banda Além beach is distinguished for its yellow sand, imported from Morocco.
Close by, at Prainha, is the island’s only natural sandy beach. Not surprisingly for a volcanic island, the sand here is black;
Nearby Caniçal * [map] was once a whaling port, but since whaling was banned here in 1981, all that remains of this formerly lucrative industry is a museum and souvenirs on sale around the town.
Along the seafront is the modern municipal market and a pebbly beach, while to the west of the town is the island’s only waterpark, the Aquaparque (http://aquaparque-stcruz.webnode.pt; mid-Mar–mid-Nov daily 10am–6pm), with a series of slides, flumes, wave pools and other watery delights.
Santa Cruz
it is accessible via a two-hour ferry crossing, or a very short (15-minute) flight – but only a handful of foreign visitors find these shores. Porto Santo is still, at heart, the resort of Madeirans, who seek what they have not: sand.
Porto Santo
Magical powers of a different kind are attributed to the island’s beach, which is said to hold curative properties that alleviate all kinds of aches and pains. Many Madeirans are convinced of its benefits and bury themselves up to their necks in sand.
Unlike the Canary Islands, Madeira offers no tax concessions for visiting shoppers, so this is not the place to come in search of cheap electrical items, designer clothes, cameras or watches.
Madeirans do not take a midday siesta, but most businesses, including shops, close for a one- or two-hour lunch break.
If you are used to machine-made, mass-produced embroidered items, you may be in for a price-tag shock: a full set of meticulously detailed table linens can take up to two years to make, so they aren’t cheap.
Ceramics and pottery are some of the most popular items on sale throughout Portugal. However, most of the items you will find in Madeira, such as pretty hand-painted plates, planters, jugs and jars, come from the mainland.
Madeira cake and wine are extremely long-lasting, so you can safely bring some back home. Genuine Madeira cake, bolo de mel (honey cake), sold in many different sizes, is very different from what you get at home;
Madeiran street flower sellers wear traditional costume – not only good for business, but required by law.
If you have run out of things to read by the pool, check out Julber (Avenida Arriaga 73) or the old-fashioned Livraria Esperança (Rua dos Ferreiros 156; tel: 291-221 116) with thousands of used books, some of them in English.
Young people head for the Café do Teatro (Avenida Arriaga, next to the municipal theatre;
Folk-dancing evenings are a regular feature at hotels; and one popular tour is to the Café Relógio in the wicker-weaving town of Camacha (for more information, click here), where the dancers are reputed to be Madeira’s very best.
Many of Madeira’s music and dance traditions date back to the island’s colonisation. They evoke rural and courtship rituals, as well as less happy moments in the island’s history. Dances reflect the importance of labour: jaunty jigs mimic the crushing of grapes with bare feet (a practice much rarer now than it once was) and slower numbers act out the carrying of heavy baskets.
Dance of the Ponta do Sol, which harks back to Ponta do Sol’s days as slave quarters.
the head is submissively bowed (slaves were forbidden to look their masters in the eye).
Two musical instruments played are uniquely Madeiran: the machête, a guitar-like instrument plucked to a rather monotonous beat, and the extraordinary brinquinho, a percussion instrument that features tiny folk-dancing dolls holding bells and castanets.
Musical instruments on Madeira
Madeira has four major festivals: Carnival, Flower Festival, Wine Festival and New Year’s Eve.
Festivals
Staged in February (occasionally in March), the pre-Lenten Carnaval
The Festa da Flor in late April or early May
children’s parade, in which each child carries a single flower and places it in a hole in a ‘Wall of Hope’ in the Praça do Município.
Wine Festival Festivals take place in wine villages, such as Estreito de Câmara de Lobos, to celebrate the September harvest.
New Year’s Eve Madeira’s biggest and most spectacular festival has an international reputation. Every year, Funchal’s hotels are packed, and you will need to book accommodation many months in advance and pay a hefty premium.
Several religious festivals also take place throughout the year, but one especially stands out – the Feast of the Assumption, known more parochially as the Festival of Nossa Senhora do Monte (Our Lady of Monte), is celebrated on 15 August in Monte. Pilgrims flock from all around the island to kiss the image of the patron saint, and some ascend the final 68 steps to the church on their knees.
The only sport to watch on Madeira is football. Islanders are wild about futebol, and two of the island’s teams – Maritímo and Nacional, play in the first division of the Portuguese league. Maritímo’s stadium is on Rua Dr Pita, while Nacional’s is high above Funchal at Choupana. The latter discovered the talent of Cristiano Ronaldo, who played for Nacional until he was 12.
