It’s uncanny how often first impressions count. Minutes from arrival I was aware of the scale of the precipitous peaks and the craggy cliffs. I spotted houses adorned with blazing bougainvillea and banana leaves. There are mercifully few high-rise buildings and every perch is high up into the hills where villages with terracotta roofs are dotted amongst the patchwork of the carved out terraced cultivation.
I stumbled across the capital Funchal‘s famous market, the ‘Mercado dos Lavradores‘. Samples of many fruits including prickly pears, loquats, paw paws and durians were sliced and popped onto my clenched palm to taste, including four types of passion fruit, three of which I had never had before: the orange, the tomato and the banana, the last being truly succulent and delicious.
© DigitalTravelCouple
The flower sellers in their distinctive red and yellow striped skirts certainly stand out in their famous ‘Festa da Flor’ Flower Festival in May. It’s a highlight of the Madeira calendar and includes a children’s parade in which each child carries a single flower to put in a ‘Wall of Hope’ to call for peace in the world.
Peaceful is one of many attributes to describe the locals as well as open, easygoing and mellow. They have many preoccupations including huddling round a café wall to gamble at cards with an urgency suggesting a more sinister convocation. And in the old photos of Madeira I was drawn to one titled The ‘Mergulhança’ (diving), which depicts bomboteiros’, local boys diving for coins that were thrown to them by tourists from the cruise liners of the fifties. As for specialist occupations street cobblers tidy the mosaic paving made from the island’s volcanic stone, embroidery is made by women called ‘bordadeiras’, wicker is fashioned in the nearby village of Camacha and tobogganists have their own famous touristic downhill ritual.
Beyond Funchal’s main promenade is the magnificent salmon pink edifice, known as Belmond Reid’s Palace (www.reidspalace.com) where I was lucky enough to stay. Founded by a Scotsman called William Reid, it belongs to an elite list of the world’s glamorous historic grand hotels, alongside London‘s Ritz, Istanbul’s Pera Palace and Havana’s Nacional. It’s steeped in history with its many distinguished guests such as George Bernard Shaw, Churchill and Thatcher.
There are common rooms on several floors and Max Romer’s images are displayed along the corridors. Jazz was played one evening in the bar and a chamber orchestra performed in the ballroom the next. The scenic and stylish ‘done thing’ is to take high tea on the ‘balcony’ overlooking the amazing garden below.
In stark contrast to the neatness of the upper swimming pools is the wild below reached by a choice of steps or a lift within a tower beside nautical pennants of the clientele’s most popular nations. It took me down to the seashore and to a ‘tidal pool’ that is refilled daily by the Ocean as it emits its irons of seawater. A visual delight. A fantastic viewpoint. A creative marriage of design and nature as it offered me a tailor-made experience to lie here and eat there amongst the many layers of rock. Luxury and nature stunningly interwined.
With Atlantic Pearl I boarded a catamaran to see the whales, dolphins and turtles out to sea. I got there just in time to be greeted by my host and the skipper. They each exuded both a warmth of welcome and a passionate knowledge of the mammals to come. So I knew I was going to be in good hands! It’s best to go when the sea is calm as it can get quite choppy but I got to see two whales. How life-enhancing.
Next I came to the Design Centre Nini Andrade Silva by7 Funchal’s main promenade. Set high up on a second floor it’s now a panoramic restaurant, both stylish and contemporary and acting as a cool backdrop to its warm staff. With jazz tickling my ears and plump vast cushions propping me up, all my senses were engaged to prepare me for the taste of dinner to come.
Of the many gardens and tropical plants on Madeira I loved the Tropical Garden at Monte Palace. Below there’s a museum where minerals and gemstones are inventively set against a brilliant blue wall. And further down are the tropical gardens. Here I imagined a rainforest with wild animals. At least I found orchids, azaleas, hydrangeas, sequoias, acacias and a laurel forest while thousand-year-old olive trees hang over koi fish that live for a century beside the resident swans and peacocks. It was so uplifting to stroll along the many elegant straight avenues of cobbled walkways adorned with niches and arches, coats of arms and Hispano Moorish tiles.
Close to the airport and set beneath the city’s western escarpment, was my next place to stay, the Quinta Jardins do Lago (www.jardinsdolago.com). This newly converted hotel has blended harmoniously with its manor house origins with recent extensions housing antiques that include the original sideboard that belonged to General Beresford who was in residence having risen to fame in the Napoleonic Wars. It’s to be found in the soothingly soft powder blue dining room and next to the parquet floors in the other common rooms. In my room, there were water seascape oil paintings, a marble bathroom floor and a balcony and verandah that made it feel like the private house it once was.
The gardens have trees with names such as ‘Bunya Bunya’, ‘False Spanish Cork Oak’ and ‘Turpentine’; palm trees with names such as ‘Chinese Fan’, ‘Pigmy Date’ and ‘Chinese Windmill’; plants with fibrous stems such as ‘Giant White Bird of Paradise’, ‘Dragon Tree’, ‘Elephant Foot Tree’ and it was the setting for my breakfast outside, by the ‘Jade Room’ and beside the impressive 16th century ceramic wall panel tucked up, as I was, in my tan-coloured wicker chair, absorbing the lovely garden and chirping birds before reluctantly setting on my return leg to London.
Although Madeira has a relatively small Muslim population of a thousand or so, it is very Muslim-friendly as the locals are known for their warmth and hospitality.
Words – Adam Jacot de Boinod
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