Madeira
Our group coalesced in Madeira on Tuesday morning at the historic hotel known as Reid’s Palace. This century-old British hotel is an important landmark and dates back to the heyday of the great wine trade between Portuguese Madeira and Britain. The hotel grounds cover several acres along the rocky coastline of the capital city of Funchal and are renowned for the spectacular collection of flowers and trees. Some 500 species of tropical and temperate plants provided a spectacular surrounding to our magnificent and luxurious base of operations, from which we enjoyed our four days in Madeira.
There is good reason that Madeira is known as the Island of Flowers. Everywhere one looks, there are flowering shade trees overhead and flowers underfoot. Within Funchal, we marveled at the numerous jacaranda trees in full bloom with their almost unreal purple hues (Figure A). The brightly-colored African tulip trees and coral (or parrot’s beak) trees, both covered with brilliant red clusters, also vied for our attention. The buildings and houses are all painted white and have red-tiled roofs, which gives the place a very pleasant Mediterranean appearance, but ample color is provided by the flowers. Even though the city of 115,000 is densely populated, it seems that every square inch of available soil within its confines is planted with flowers…and, where flowers can’t grow in the ground, they are planted in pots (Figure B). As luck would have it, the city was preparing for its annual celebration of flowers during our visit and the locals were busy setting up temporary floral displays along the main streets…increasing the effect even more. Yes, the Madeirans are quite obsessed with flowers.
We managed to keep very busy during our four days in Madeira and numerous options for activities were offered every day. Tuesday afternoon, everyone had a chance to tour Funchal’s Old Town, a dynamic region where we learned about Madeira’s famous lace industry and spent time in the interesting history museum known as the Madeira Story Center.
