We've just returned from a fabulous week on the island of Madeira.
Madeira
is a little volcanic archipelago off the coast of of Africa, about 400
miles west of Casablanca. Part of Portugal since it was discovered about
500 years ago, it feels more like Europe than like Africa, but environmentally
it's a sort of Hawaii of the Atlantic. Tropical climate. Steep, dramatic
verdant hillsides, luscious flowers everywhere, fabulous tropical fruits,
and incredible seafood. Well, except the main island has no sandy beaches.
For us the highlight was the walking. It turns out to be an incredibly
nice place for hiking. The hillsides are beautiful, with stunning ridges
and ravines, beautiful tropical forests, terraced fields, and neat rural
villages. You'd think it would be hard going, with all that steep terrain.
As it turns out, though, they have developed an extensive network (thousands
of miles) of aqueducts, called "levadas", over the past 100 years. It turns
out that although they have plenty of rain, most of it simply runs down
the steep slopes to the sea... so they capture it and route it through
the levadas to all the fields. These levadas, about 2' wide and 1-2' deep,
usually open to the air, follow the contours of the hills, of course, and
are thus essentially flat. They are a public network, so in most places
it is acceptable to walk along them. In some places, that means walking
on a dirt path alongside the water channel. In others, the hillside is
so steep that you walk on the concrete wall of the levada, which is maybe
18" wide, and on one side you have the flowing water, and the other side
you have a several-hundred-foot drop down into the ravine. It can be "vertiginous",
as the guidebook says. Other places, they tunnel through the hillside,
and you crouch a bit and walk through the darkness for anywhere from a
few feet to several hundred yards, trying not to hit your head or fall
into the levada.
On our first hike, a newer levada (only
30-40 years old), it weaved through the forests and occasionally through
a small village. Here and there was a little sluice gate where the water
could be released to flow down into a farmer's field. These gates were
controlled by the levadeiro, a man who manages the levada. While stopped
for a late-afternoon snack one day, a very old looking man strode along
the levada past us, in his traditional wool hat and turned-down leather
boots, clearly comfortable with the hundred-foot drop along the levada.
I'm pretty sure he was the levadeiro; he certainly looked the part.
But on our next hike, on one of the oldest
levadas that flowed right into Funchal, it spent very little time in the
forest and most of its time flowing alongside old houses. Indeed, this
levada was mostly covered over, and the resulting three-foot-wide "sidewalk"
was clearly the main path for transportation to and from the houses along
the levada. We passed many people going about their daily business, making
us feel silly in our hiking boots and backpack. We passed numerous neat
little houses overflowing with tropical flowers, and countless banana trees,
the principal cash crop at that altitude. In many places it was amazing
to see extremely fancy new villas being constructed, most likely for an
emigree returning from afar after making his riches.
They are of course famous for their wine, "Madeira", so we of course stopped
by a few wineries for a tour and a taste ;-). We stopped by one neat little
shop where two old brothers managed a small winery
that was started by their great-grandfather. He showed us through his wine
attic (Madeira needs to be warmed as it ages in oak barrels, to achieve
its special flavor), which had barrel after dusty barrel of wines first
pressed by their grandfather. The years and in some cases the grape names
had worn off some barrels, so that rather than selling us a particular
vintage he'd introduce each bottle by saying it was pressed by his father,
or his grandfather....
They are also famous for their embroidery. Absolutely beautiful, but incredibly expensive, so we mostly had to just look.
On a day-long tour of the eastern half of the island,
we passed numerous vineyards, all terraced into the steep hillsides. Given
the terrain, the natural shape of all the roads is "hairpin turn"; coupled
with the fact that all the roads are following the contours of a steep
hill, and that nearly all the roads are barely more than 1 lane wide, this
makes driving pretty hairy. The drive also gave us a flavor of the incredible
diversity packed into a small space... as you change elevation from sea
level up to the peaks at 6000', the vegetation changes dramatically. The
northern coast is much wetter than the southern coast (we spent most of
our time in Funchal, the main city on the sunny south coast). And since
the islands are volcanic, we were able to explore some grottoes (lava tubes,
actually) formed by agent lava flows.
The city of Funchal itself is wonderful... 500 years old, young by European
standards, it still has that wonderful European flavor, with narrow cobblestone
streets, sidewalk cafes, ancient churches, and neat old architecture. On the left is one of the many beautiful mosaic sidewalks, Portuguese style.
There are lots of neat places, like this small courtyard overlooking the sea (left), and this view of the harbor (center).
Although quite a walkable city, we figured out the local bus system and found it quite handy. Because the terrain is so steep, a bus can be a handy shortcut to a steep climb uphill. In this picture check out the line where the street meets the houses on the left. It got a lot steeper and narrower as we climbed this street, stopping occasionally to press ourselves against the wall as a truck came barreling down the hill.
Given the tropical climate, flowers and fruits abound. We toured a special
orchid
garden that was just incredible, with hundreds of varieties.
We strolled
through the city market, filled to the brim every
day with every sort of flower, fruit, or vegetable one can imagine, alongside
the fish market with the freshest seafood.
Fortunately, there's no shortage
of Portuguese cooking in all the restaurants nearby. Yum... Here at Arsenio's, the chef (Arsenio) stands out front grilling the most fabulous fish espadas, that is, fish and vegetables on a skewer. Inside, during dinner musicians play and sing "Fado" music. Although the food here was good, the atmosphere was a bit touristy... across the street, O Jango's was much more interesting; tiny and crowded and also very good food.
Although it is part of Portugal, the British have been significant presence
for about 400 years, arriving first as part of the sugar and wine industries.
So it is a very popular place for British tourists, now, and quite a few
Germans, although we saw very few Americans. So almost everyone, at least
in Funchal and definitely at any tourist sort of place, speaks English.
I hardly had a chance to dig out my old Portuguese. Unfortunately, the
tourist industry is growing so fast that hotels are being built by the
dozen. The photo at right shows a view of the western edge of "Hotel town,"
a cluster of many hotels on the western edge of Funchal. We stayed at the
five-star Madeira Palacio, which we highly recommend. See the very top picture for the view from our hotel room.
Overall, a fabulous place. See http://www.madinfo.pt/ for pointers to information.