A belated post from a November 2024 family visit to Madeira.
300 miles west of the Moroccan coast, the Portuguese island of Madeira rises steeply up from the Atlantic to heights of 1800m. The population of around 250,000 mostly live in settlements that cling to the island’s coastline, leaving an almost untouched interior – lush green and entirely mountainous – that looks like something from Jurassic Park.
Madeira is criss-crossed by ‘levadas’, irrigation channels built on a gentle decline to bring fresh mountain water down to the coastal population. Some of these date back as far as when the Portuguese settled on the island in the 15th century. A path runs parallel to most levadas, creating a network of routes for walkers.
Laid out across a series of terraces high above Funchal, Madeira’s sleepy capital, is the Botanical Garden. Home to over 2,000 plants and flowers, and an art gallery, this is quite rightly one of the most visited attractions on the island.
Funchal climbs up the mountainside from a wide bay at the southernly point of Madeira. Sites such as the Botanical Garden are reached by cable car, providing far-reaching panoramas.
Above: your author contemplates it all.
Below: looking due west over the Atlantic, the next landfall would be at Charleston, South Carolina, around 3,000 miles away.
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