madeira island of tunnels

Why i chose Madeira

2020-01-01T11:50:00.001+01:00

Madeira, I’m writing this blog because when I was searching on the internet in June 08, for information about Madeira there was practically nothing to find. It was so bad that according to Google Earth Madeira just doesn’t exist. I did find some pictures of flowers and of old men’s arses as they climbed the stairs leaving a hotel swimming pool in their snorkeling gear. Huh? Yes, seriously, snorkeling in the swimming pool, this was getting weird, I mean what is going on in Madeira? Not only that - these were the arses of old guys, and that’s something we all prefer not to see, thanks. I will admit that Wikipedia had a small amount of historical info but that just confused me even more.

Sooooooo anyway, enough about the marvelous internet with its abundance of never ending information, and back to the story. Yes, Madeira, that’s what I’m writing about. So why Madeira? All I wanted was a holiday where I could snorkel and look at the fish. Not too much to ask I reckon. I had originally planned to go to Bonaire where there are fish galore, but the girl I was going with refused to go there, because of the heat. But she would go to Madeira as it would be cool. So that’s when I started Googling Madeira.

This much I could find out, Madeira is a small island on the north west African coast and it is a colony of Portugal - eeeemmmmm I love Portugal.

The one thing the internet had plenty of was online booking bureaus for holidays in Madeira, but then it would, wouldn’t it. So the search was on. I looked at hotel after hotel, price after price for hours and hours. Personally it was not very appealing, all those hotel complexes with their old-aged guys in diving gear swimming around the pools. I then checked out the camping sites, didn’t seem to be much info on that either. Was there even a camping? Then I saw in a flits on one or the other website, the word bungalow so I chased that. Looked at a photo, yes one photo, that’s all there was. Eeemmm looked nice, much more expensive than the gorgeous hotels, but private. They were advertised on a Dutch site Domino Travel. I started to feed into the website what I wanted to get an idea of the prices. It was expensive and, as the website was under construction and didn’t seem to work (ooohh what a surprise), I telephoned them. Thank God for the good old ways of communication, it was a lot quicker as well.

Anyway after I booked, I found out that Mash (one of my brothers) had been there. He told me there’s nothing to do there, which is polite for “it’s boring as hell”. So I might as well have just chucked the 1500 euro it was going to cost into the sea. He also told me that there are no beaches on Madeira, because it’s an old Volcano island. The worst was - there’s no snorkeling. So I was going to a expensive boring island where ugly old guys swam around the swimming pools in diving gear. It then dawned on me that the diving suits were so they wouldn’t directly loose urine into the pools. Oh My God, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, what had I done!

And you know I blame this all on the internet because, had I used the phone to call my brother, I would have been told this before it was too late, and had I gone into the city to a travel agent would have been a damn sight cheaper. Fuc Fuc Fuc.

And finally I asked the friend I was going with why she chose Madeira - answer: “I don’t know. I vaguely heard of it”.

Yes exactly it was all vague.

Day 9 and the Volcano Pico Rivo

2009-07-20T19:18:00.030+02:00

Day 9 and I absolutely refuse to just sit in the bungalow. I’m dying to walk up to the volcano, so sick or not, and we decided to try again, and this time to get there on time. God I wish there wasn’t so much to stop and see and look at or photo in Madeira, because then I might just be able to get on up there.

We choose to try the way up the volcano via the south side of the island, and Funchel, thinking it would be quicker. The drive would be less but the walk would be longer, and we reckon on a two hour drive, hahhah, eeemm no such luck! The problem on this day is a misunderstanding between me and my friend. I have one route and destination in my mind; he has a completely different one. And WOW we mess it up again.

So we set out, both not realizing we have two completely different plans. I was thinking of just going straight up to the volcano via Funchel , and he was thinking we were going to some balconies were the views are meant to be mind boggling and where there are walks along the most dangerous Levada’s.

We set out at 11, and arrive around 2 , oh why does it all take so long, yes because it’s so mountainous and because of the really busy and dangerous road up past Funchel into the mountains. With its narrow roads and fast busses swerving around corners. We constantly have to stop to let the Lorries and buses by, hoping the cars handbrake wouldn’t give up. At one point a bus comes around a corner so quickly we nearly crash stopping with maybe 5 cm between us. Yep another nerve racking drive, and I had thought it'd be easy!

We pass some kind of ecological place, and stop for a drink in a nice café up in the woods. Finally we make it up there, the car park and were we would start walking. At some point there had been a hotel up there, now looking very derelict. Pity it’s a great situation for a hotel. But probably very cold.

Of course we start walking along the wrong point, and have to go back to get onto the right path. In fact the real path is quite busy with Germans dressed in top notch hiking clothes costing obviously thousands and the Portuguese in the best Sunday shoes and the woman in high heels. Actually I wasn’t very well prepared either but didn’t give a damn. I just wanted to get up to the top. Who cares if I broke an ankle? I didn’t.

It’s a 7.5 kilometer walk, which is not much, if it had been flat, but it was really steep going up, with a narrow path and a very very steep falls. At one point we see a BBQ place cut into the side of the mountain, table and chairs, but who is going to struggle the whole way up there with their BBQ stuff ?, pretty weirdo these Madeiran’s.

Well all I can say is it was totally gorgeous up there, just a pity we never made it! Hahhaha.

At 4,30 we had the choice of going on and sleeping somewhere at the top by the volcano crater in the open freezing cold wind or eating at a good restaurant and sleeping at home in the warm bungalows, well as you can imagine that was a really hard decision to make and unhappily we choose for the latter and rushed back, as quick as we could. Which was also bloody hard going, and took forever.

We actually got back before it got dark and we just sat and watched as other walkers struggled back. After a while we headed back and in the dark. Funchel to Ponta do Prago and all the tunnels is pretty hellish and as usual slow going.

We went to a restaurant that we had avoided till now, thinking it’d be crap. It’s called O Farol, its kitchen cooking, near the lighthouse at Ponta do Prago. And what can I say but it’s marvelous! It’s on my list as second best restaurant we visited. I had Limpets and they are totally heaven. Also we got Tuna salad, Tuna steaks and Espada O Farol. WOW.

The next day will be our last day and we seriously thought this was a pity, it had all been one big adventure, the way we like it.

Day 8: I’m really feeling ill and not surprised by it.

2009-07-12T10:49:00.006+02:00

The abscess on my tongue is very large and very painful. When I looked at it, it is at least one and a half centimeter big and it’s yellow and seeping with pus. Horrible.

I become convinced when looking back on it, that it must have been from the spit in my food at the restaurant Eucalipto in the mountains at Boca do Encumeada. But of course I can’t be sure of it. So I decided I have to see a doctor, first I try the Centro de Saide at Ponto de Prago. But they are very busy and send me away. Me being just a non portuges tourist.

I end up driving to calheta. I drive around trying to find the Centrum de Saide but I cant find anything near the harbor. I ask the police, who are of course very unhelpful, but luckily a fisherman offers to take me. He drives in front and I follow in my car and we journey high into the mountains around Calheta. It is amazing I had no idea that this part of Calheta even existed. There is a massive town, the real town of Calheta in the mountains. Its not a place for show, like the godforsaken harbor with its silly awful manmade beaches.

Finally we get to the Centrum de Said and I wait in line. They check my papers and I have to pay 35 Euros. Finally after a hour or so when I see the dokter he prescribes some cream and tells me how to keep my mouth clean, bit of a problem for me! as you guys reading this know. Silly buggers.

Anyway I see the doctor for maybe 5 minutes, HUH! 35 Euros? Are you kidding me, no I’m not! Really 35 Euros, the Madeirans sure know how to make people feel welcome (but more about that later on in my last few chapters coz you’ll be glad to hear that my adventures didn’t end when I left the island). But anyway: so my day ends here: I go back to the bungalows and sleep, my tongue seeping with pus, getting no real medical help, my body temperature rising as the abscess grows bigger, my holiday ruined by some dirty bastard spitting in my food.

Day 3. Funchal and Prazres: Hell and Heaven

2009-06-01T10:34:00.008+02:00

And what can I say: Was it another day wasted on geeky rubbish?

And so there we were, two city dwellers on this tiny island with nothing to do and there we sat in our little bungalow, with a telephone and iPod that we couldn’t recharge - and that was a situation of panic. Even if we could recharge them, the speakers I’d bought were so bad we would never be able to hear the music. So we decided that we had a problem, a very serious problem - that all our crappy geeky stuff didn’t work. But we could solve that, it would be easy, all we had to do was get our hands on chargers that worked on the car battery. Easy peasy, one would think. Just a journey of a few hours to the capital of Madeira, Funchel. And I could solve another problem there as well: I’d be buying a readable map.

When we arrived at the Lisbon airport waiting for our flight to Madeira, we’d browsed the duty free shop and it had been full of iPod stuff, so this wasn’t going to be too difficult. We set off early on the long journey to Funchal. It started to get very warm and finally, when we did arrive at the capital, it was baking hot. The first thing we did was the traditional getting lost scene, I mean as usual á la Portugal, it seemed to be all unreadable road signs. Not only that, Funchal was reasonably big, with the centre in a valley surrounded on all sides (except the port side) with the outskirts on the slopes of the high mountains all around it. So we headed down, not having a clue where we were or where we were going. We wanted the shopping centre and, after driving around for what seemed to be hours, we finally hit the docks, so we drove along that, reasoning that the city centre would be in that area. The temperature was now HOT and we were baking. What can I say about Funchal except that it’s a dump, a tourist dump. Thousands of tourists stepping out in front of the cars, or even worse, like us, in cars driving around hopelessly lost and hoping to find a parking place (which seemed to be something the city builders had never heard of). It was at this point that we lost our tempers and so, along with all the tooting, tourists and scorching sun, we were now screaming at each other. Then his lordship (you know that male, up above) decided to stop the crap, and lo and behold, all of a sudden right in front of us, there was a small underground parking area. I put my foot down and shot into it, grabbing the first place I could find. Yeah, we were all set, for a day shopping, just what I love.

We set off walking, as one does in a city, direction where all the people were heading for. First things first, the battery chargers and. As far as we could see, every second shop was a mobile telephone shop. So I went into one and asked. They replied in nearly perfect English, “ No we do not have“. As I looked around I noticed that, yes, indeed, there seemed to be a lot of Vodafone stuff and some other Portuguese make, but no Sony Ericsson ( my mobile) and no iPod stuff. And so we walked on, shop in, shop out, each time getting directions to possible places where I could get my hands on the makes I needed. After some two hours trudging around in the scorching heat, I found a Sony Ericson car charger. But in all the shops I’d been in there was nothing in the way of stuff for iPods. This was getting like Google maps, where Madeira doesn’t seem to exist. Apple was also passing this island by.

By now we were getting tired and stopped to sit in a park. It was cool with enormous Datura trees in full flower, towering bamboo and bloody old-aged English tourists everywhere. We went and sat at the bar in the park and observed the English drunks all around us making idiots of themselves. God they are horrible!. I then and there decided I wanted to go snorkeling, it would be a lot more colourful and a lot less embarrassing than watching the drunks.

You know, I really wanted to see the fish. All those fantastic colors swimming past me. So we set off to the docks which looked promising from a distance, but once we got there was just one big mass of throbbing tourists, all old, mostly drunk. In the water were loads of boats offering trips to Porta Santo or whale watching and snorkeling. So I asked around and looked at the photos of the trips, and found out that these boat trips (and there were hundreds) were three hour journeys, with a glance of a whale fin if you’re lucky, or maybe a dolphin. Only one place offered 20 minutes snorkeling, and then that was only if it’s warm enough, and so you ask yourself- why all the tourists? Why were these boats doing such good business? Yes, you guessed it! All the boat trips offered free drinks all round and as much as you could devour in three hours. We decided to fuck the snorkeling and continued our search for big Apple’s little treasures. I’m not joking; we walked for hours, angry, hot and miserable, in and out of shops, on and on.

Finally we arrived at some super modern shopping centre where we were trailed by security, two of them in uniform. Wherever we went they went. Then, oh my god, we found a television shop with two iPods and YEAH, a compatible car charger. Wow, we’d done it, finally, mission accomplished. We were all set. I’d even picked up a map in a book shop (haha yes real life paper books which I didn’t know still existed).

We stormed back to the car. Wanting to leave this awful city, back to those bungalows in the cool mountains that were by the minute becoming more and more attractive. Finally back in the car we plugged the charger into the cigarette lighter holder, attached my iPod and got out of there.

On the way out, all around I could smell Funchal, it smelt of flowers, barbequed meat and rubbish bags rotting in the heat and you know what it was goddamn awful, it was nauseating, it was Funchal.

We drove once more, through kilometers of tunnels, and then at the end of the stretch of tunnels, about 45 minutes from Funchal, where we would turn off into the mountain roads to Ponto do Prago, I saw a sign saying Prazeres. In the bungalows I had seen that there was a teahouse there that sells homemade ice cream and I reckoned I could kill for an ice cream after the Funchal experience - so we headed there. We drove into the village then drove round it a couple of times but couldn’t find the teahouse. There were a few restaurants with posters of just the normal old magnums and stuff. But that’s not what I’d come for. I wanted to try the homemade stuff.

We stopped near the village church where a group of old people seemed to be working in the churchyard under a small covered area. Gradually as we sat there and watched it dawned on us that they were pressing and squeezing apples. They were making vinegar and we could smell it. The slightly biting pungent vinegar smell surrounded the whole village. It was glorious.

And the sight of this little group was beautiful to watch as well, how they worked together, labouring away, happy and joking amongst themselves. I plucked up courage to go up to them and ask the way to the teahouse, all the time thinking they’d be the typical Portuguese rude and laugh me away or just ignore me. They didn’t speak English so there I stood in front of this group making a ridiculous demonstration of licking an ice cream - God did I feel stupid. They just laughed, not at me, but with me and one woman pointed behind the church and gave a wink.

So we drove the few yards up the road to behind the church, and there, in the backyard of the church, was a sign ‘Teahouse’. We rushed in because it was getting late and we were worried we’d be too late for our ice cream. In the little shop they had a choice of three flavours of ice cream, all exotic. I had no idea what they were, but bought the ice and went into the yard to eat it. Oh, how can I explain, the first bite was heaven, like an orgasm. My god that ice cream was delicious. It was the best I’ve ever had in my life. I had something like it in Sicily years ago but not as good as this. When I say I bit into it, I mean it, it was too thick to lick. It was made from pure cream and was full or clots of cream flavoured with the fruits. I found out that next to the teahouse, also belonging to the church, is a small children’s farm where they milk the cows and make the cream fresh every day. The fruit trees, for the flavours, grow around the teahouse. As we walked through the farm I met the same lady who had directed me earlier milking a cow. She explained with hands and feet that it was for the ice cream. We also realized that it was this little farm that provided the village with its yearly meat. There was an abundance of different animals, ostrich, pigs, goats, and ducks and so on. Everything edible.

Right at the back of the children’s farm was a small hut and in there two men were barbequing or smoking meats from a slaughtered animal. In our western culture, this is a weird concept, that while the kids run around and stroke and play with the animals, they also experience the reality that the animals get slaughtered and used for food. From my point of view this is a good thing, if you also allow the kids the choice of wanting to eat meat or not.

Also in the yard of the church was a converted barn, set up with computers offering a free I centre and WIFI point. The computers were all taken by the kids of this weird village on this isolated island, communicating with the world.

The teas, herbs and jam ingredients that the little teahouse sold were also grown right there in the church yard. You could also buy or just pick and take the herbs depending on how you feel.

The church in Prazres was catering for the whole village, young and old. Keeping the village alive and interesting and doing a really good job of it as well. This church really did care for its community . It was even tackling the problem of the young moving away to the city or mainland, because of the hardships of living off the land, in the best way it could.

It was now about 8 in the evening and though we weren’t really hungry after the ice cream, we went in search of a restaurant (hahha very greedy).

We went to a restaurant we’d seen the day before, it was in Ponto do Prago, down past the lighthouse. To get there you follow the board to Mirandouro (view point) in Ponto do Prago. This takes you down to the cliffs and coastline. Built next to the viewpoint is the restaurant “Casa de Cha”. The kitchen closes at 20,30. so we just made it on time. We were the only people there and had a long wait for our food as they were making it freshly, but we sat outside and the view was fantastic. We started off with shrimps cooked in garlic and then had a traditional meat dish, a pork and mushroom stew flavoured with herbs and garlic. The food was simple yet really good and the woman who worked there was really friendly .

And so it was that day 3 got its name: hell and heaven. A day that had started in that stinking Funchal, and that had ended up as interesting and delicious once we’d got back into the country.

There was one point that wasn’t quite OK that evening: We drove back to the bungalow, still charging the iPod, only to find out it hadn’t charged at all. After a lot of messing around we realized the car chargers I bought hadn’t charged because the lighter fittings in the car had been disabled!. Bloody hell.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: Yeahhh were gonna go ahead and spell the capital of Madeira with an "n". FUNCHAL.; May 27, 2009

lisabiziou said...: hey anoymous dont no if you see this, but your GD right and i never realised the whole time, really stupid of me. now i got to reupload the page again with a new URL and ask GD google god to delete the old one, which will take about six monthes if they do it at all.
already got 5 url waiting for deletion, waiting now months.
damn damn damn.

thanks for the signal. my stupid spelling is appalling.

lisa

Day 7, Market at Prazeres and harbour at Paul do Mar

2009-06-01T10:25:00.004+02:00

Day 7, and I’m ill.

I wake up in the morning with a really painful abscess on my tongue. I feel rotten and sick. I realize I have to do something about it, and rest out. Maybe it was the long days driving or the spit in the food! But there was no way I was going to let this ruin my holiday.At a chemists in Ponto do Prago I get some cream to put on it and the lady tells me a lot of people get this here due to vitamin shortage.

We decide to stay nearby and go to the market at Prazeres which is every Sunday. We get fresh fruit and veggies and the prices are totally ridicules (for us Dutch that is).

A kilo avocados costs 50ct, a kilo mango 1 euro and so on. I managed to get some chutneys as well, things like apple and carrot and its really delicious. Back in Prazeras we get another ice cream, and just sit around and enjoy the sun.

Later, we want to get fresh fish and cook at home so we decide to go down to Jardim do Mar and try the harbor, we drive up and down the village coast but there’s nothing in the way of fishermen. It’s also a pretty grotty place, and looks like the locals live in bad conditions.

Anyway, we drive onto Paul do Mar, which has a small harbor, and I thought would give us more chance at finding fresh fish.

Paul do Mar is a kind of gorgeous, idealistic small village that everyone might want to live at, till they look and smell closer.

When we got there its lunch time and the villagers are sitting outside at the harbor, drinking, loads and loads of them, in large groups, drunk and unfriendly. We walk along the tiny harbor were guys and boys are pulling in the fish every few minutes.

I ask one guy if I can buy one, he looks me up and down slowly and replies , no, which didn’t surprise me in the least, it being the usual Portuguese approach to foreigners.

Also taking a closer look at the water in the harbor we realize it is not very inviting for a swim either, its ridden with dirt and dead fish and to get to the small beach, you have to fight your way through the human shit, god don’t they have toilets in this place?

In the end we get as fast as we can out of the village back to Caletha and the supermarket to buy cockles and pork to make the Portuguese national dish, and go back to D’Amparo and just relax.

Day 6, and we wanna climb the volcano.

2009-04-30T12:15:00.009+02:00

When we woke up, the air was very misty and cold and so it would stay the whole day, giving the areas we got too a feeling of ghostliness.

We head off quite late to tackle this task, around 12 am. Again we were completely unable to calculate how long it was going to take to get there. We thought we’d get there via the north side of the island. We’d be passing Port Moniz once again onto Sao Vincente then further along to Ponta Delgada and then Boaventura. Then from there up into the mountains towards Pico Ruivo which is the volcano. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. Seeing as the island is 57 odd kilometers long and this journey was less than a quarter of the way round we just assumed we’d make it on time. But yep, the detours and stops were one problem, I just couldn’t resist stopping here or there, and the mountainous roads were the other.

We never could work out which direction the sign in this photo was pointing to.

And so we set of, passing by the hole in the road, wondering if it would be a bit too much getting stuck in the hole a second time round, realizing it probably wouldn’t be appreciated if we did, and so we just waved at the guys digging and drove on.

We made it past Port Moniz without stopping but I had to get films and photos of the gruesome camping at Ilheus Riberia da Janela. And so we did just that, spending quite a while there, doing our thing.

I was by now beginning to feel the pressure of driving all day, every day, often till 12 at night, and I seemed to have got a spot on my tongue that was hurting, so I wasn’t feeling completely ok.

We drive past Boa Ventura and when we finally got to the road around Ponta Delgada, it goes straight up high into the mountains. It becomes a one lane road with rock falls, curves and impossible passes. And my god is it steep here, if I had thought other areas of Madeira were steep then I was kidding myself, this road was near to impossible. The lorries driving on this road really didn’t help either and every two minutes we’d have to stop the car, put on the handbrake to stop it rolling back down the hill, and pray the lorries would be able to get past. The drive was really exhausting me.

Somewhere high up in the mountains we stop for a coffee and drive on. It was beginning to get late and it was still misty as hell. At Santana we leave the high coast road and head up to the highest point inland, 1862 meters high and Pico Ruivo.

On this road the scenery is different from the earlier road and its woods everywhere and wide enough to drive on safely.

We arrived at around 5 o’clock, it having taken 5 hours to drive about 30 kilometers. Ridicules.

And bugger when we got to the top there’s a car park with a board telling people what not to do, that mainly being have warm clothes, water and not venture out in bad weather. The mist was so thick we could hardly see our own hands. Not being one to prepare well, I read the advice on a board at the parking, and started having doubts. It’s a 2,5 kilometer walk upwards to the volcano crater and the same back. Time wise one way is one and a half hours. That would mean it’d take us slightly longer, maybe two and a half hours maybe more. That would mean walking in the dark. Also there were warnings that’s its dangerous in the best sunny weather, and we shouldn’t even think of setting out in freezing mist. Bram walked up the path a few meters and he was gone. I could hear him calling but visibility was zero.

I just had to wait for him to find his way back, because I’m no hero and there was no way I was gonna venture down the path to save him, if he got lost that was just hard luck.

After a while he made it back following the path and we decided that was that we’d just have to give up and climb the volcano the next day. Also we hadn’t told anyone we were doing the climb and the board in the car park advised people to do that.

And so we drove away slightly disappointed, deciding on the quickest way home, via fuchel on the south side of the island and through the tunnels. Jesus even that’d take two hours.

On the way we at around ten we look get to Prazares look for somewhere to eat. We find one place open, or maybe better said just closing and they invite us in and cook fresh food for us. It’s called the Rurais restaurant, as usual we got ink fish and shrimps and I decided to try the pork stew with garlic again but hopefully better cooked than last time. Bram got the famous Madeira steak, cooked with Parma ham. The owners are super friendly and we end up chatting till late with them, the guy not understanding how we could live in such a dump as Holland and even worse Rotterdam, and you no, we were now realizing just how nice Madeira really was.

Carne De Vinho E Alhos Recept.

2009-04-20T09:50:00.002+02:00

Carne De Vinho E Alhos Recept.

4 days preperation time.

The Portuguese even eat this as early as 10 am as breakfast but anytime all days ok.

1 kg of pig meat (with some fat)

2 cups of vinegar of grapes

Thick sea salt

10 garlic (teeth)

Portuguese bread one day old.

Pepper,

1 carrot

White wine

Marjorie

thyme

Cut the meat to the squares and lay it on a bed of salt for 24 hours.

The next day, make the marinade with one cup of vinegar, one cup of wine and a half cup of water, diced carrot, crushed garlic, pepper and the herbs.

Rub marinade into the meat and leave for at least three days. The marinade has to cover the meat completely.

Take the meat out of the marinade and fry the meat with olive oil. Don’t add marinade the meat is wet enough. Fry it till the meat is quite dry then continue till the meat is a bit crunchy.

To eat it dip your old bread in the saps accompanied by chips or fried maize and a salad. You can also fry up your potatoes and mix them into the meat.

It is served hot… and its quite flavorful…but is it worth the work?

Espada fried scabbard with banana

2009-04-19T10:36:00.005+02:00

Black Scabbard with Fried Banana;

Ingredients:

scabbard fillets,
salt to taste,
fresh ground pepper to taste,
several cloves of garlic,
lemon juice oil to fry it in.

Preparation: season the fish with the salt, pepper, crushed garlic and lemon juice. Fry the fish fillets then drain off the excess oil and fry slices of banana lengthways in the pan.

Put the banana on top and Hey presto, the most boring dish on Madeira! A lot of effort for a really boney fish with a bit of banana.

Acorda soup- bread soup

2009-04-19T09:59:00.003+02:00

There's are different Acorda soups, there's Acorda de Alho (Garlic Breaded Soup) and Acorda de Tomate (Tomato Breaded Soup). Heres the garlic one. I cant eat this stuff cox i cant stand eggs.

Ingredients:

1 slice of bread for each person

1 egg for each person

garlic

water

olive oil

green pepper

coriander

salt

Peal the garlic, cut into pieces and smash with the coriander and olive oil.

Put in bowls covering with the bread cut in pieces.

Boil the desired amount of water with salt to taste and a spoonful of vinegar.

Break the eggs slowly into the boiling water until slightly cooked.

Take the eggs and place in each bowl with the broth on top.

You can also use water cooked with codfish and proceed the same way.

Espetada madeira beef cooked on a bayleaf stick

2009-04-19T09:12:00.006+02:00

Here we have all the ingredients for a good espetada, a classic Madeira dish.

Beef

Bay leaves

Garlic

Salt

Stone bowl (Calhau) to bash salt, garlic & bay leaves

Board to prepare everything on...

Spit (even better if a stick of laurel)

Wood burning grill

Cut the beef into cubes, bash the bay leaves, garlic and salt together and rub into the beef.

Skewer it onto a bay leaf stick and leave it to grill over smoldering wood chips.

Accompany with garlic 'bolo do caco', milho frito, french fries, fresh salad and some wine.

Milho Frito - Fried Cornmeal Recipe

2009-04-19T08:58:00.004+02:00

Milho Frito - Fried Cornmeal Recipe.

Cut into cubes and fried, this polenta-like mixture is a traditional side dish in Madeira and replaces fried potatoes.

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Refrigeration time: 2 hours

Ingredients

250 g (9 oz.) cornmeal

2 liters (8 cups) water

Oil for frying

A drizzle of olive oil

Salt

1 clove of garlic, minced

Method

Cook the cornmeal with the water, garlic and olive oil until it forms a thick mixture.
Pour into a greased flat-bottomed dish so that it forms a layer about 2.5 cm (1") thick and put in the fridge for two hours.
Take out of fridge and cut it into cubes. Deep fry in hot oil.Remove once the cubes are nicely browned.
Sprinkle olive oil and season with salt and serve hot.

Bolo do Caco

2009-04-18T15:52:00.009+02:00

This couple were on the way to Port Moniz, as you can see they also had chicken.

Bolo do Caco is the tradionale madeiran bread. The best ones you can get are sold on sundays on roadsides away froim the city. Its cooked on a open grill or fire then cut in half and filled with garlic butter.
Often the roadside vendors also sell half or whole chickens also cooked over the open fire.

This lady had her place in the mountain roads near Ponta do Prago.

Bolo do Caco Recipe
Madeira Cuisine
Ingredients:

* 750 g of flour
* 1 coffee spoon of bread leaven
* 50 g of baker's yeast
* salt

How to do it:

1. Bolt the flour into an earthenware bowl and join the leaven and the bread dough.
2. Add small portions of water with salt.
3. Mix and knead until you get an homogenous dough.
4. Divide it in small portions and make on each one a deep cut in cross with your hand.
5. Cover the table with a white table cloth and the table cloth with flour. On the top of it put the 4 portions of dough separate from eache other.
6. Cover them with the table cloth and let them ferment until the cuts desappear.
7. Cook the dough over a clay or stone thin base put over tripods above high firewood.
8. Turn the breads over to let them cook equally in both sides.

Poncha da Madeira

2009-04-18T14:38:00.009+02:00

Poncha da Madeira:traditional honey and lemon punch.

This is the real favorite of Madeira, youll find it everywere and the locals love it.

Ingredients: Alcohol, honey, rum("aguardente de cana"), citrus/lemon juice, passion fruit, and citric acids.

I took a bottle of this stuff home, and it was totally marvelous.

Take one good measure of ‘aguardente’ (a white alcohol made from distilled sugar cane) and mix it with ‘mel de cana’ (sugar cane honey) and fresh lemon juice (add some orange juice if you like), stir it well and get it down in one. And there you have your homemade ‘poncha’. Lekkerrrrrr, as the dutch say

The video under is a guy making glasses of it. youll have to google the names of the products if dunno wat they are.

And this is what happens when you drink it.

restarants on madeira

2009-04-18T13:42:00.004+02:00

After our scare at the famous Boca da Encumeada restarant, we vowed we would only eat well and our vow was answered and we only eat at great local restarants.
In all the restarants we went to there seemed to be a stray cat that would come and join us at the table, YUK.

The first photos are of the restarant O precipicio its oin the way to Paul do Mar, and its built overhanging a cliff, its very high up and slightly scary. It was our favorite restarant.

This photo is just the terrace of the restarant:

These were some dishes. First one is inkfish, second ones rabbit stew, sardines, and potato chips, and last is the tradional sick cat.

And this was the view.

Under are photos of sardines at the "A Vista Restarant" in Port Moniz and limpits that i had at the O Farol restarant thats on the way to the lighthouse in Ponta do prago. And beleive me limpits are totally delicious! eemm and the bloody cat at O Farol.

Here is a list of the places we went to. Ive given them a number one to ten.
first the good places;

"O Precipicio" my rating 9.5 (its high up in the mountains on the way to paul do Mar) They cook as you wait.

"O Farol" my rating 9 (on the way to the light house at ponta do Prago) They cook as you wait.

Were not to go

"Eucalipto" my rating 0.0. In the mountains at Boca d Encumeada. Its a horrible tourist trap, a hotel and restarant. The waiters are rude, the foods awful and one young waiter was giving a waitress a demontration on how to spit in the food and coffee. YUKKIE!

"Madeline da Mar" my rating 2,5. On the roaside near calheta, we were shown fresh fish and given old dry rotten stuff. Give it a miss unless there is really nothing else. Fish and meat tasted and had the texture of old socks.

Madeira wine - Bottle shock.

2009-04-18T10:34:00.007+02:00

Madeira is a fortified Portuguese wine made on the Madeira Islands. The wine is produced in a variety of styles ranging from dry wines which can be consumed on their own as an aperitif, to sweet wines more usually consumed with dessert. Cheaper versions are often flavored with salt and pepper for use in cooking.

The islands of Madeira have a long winemaking history dating back to the Age of Exploration when Madeira was a standard port of call for ships heading to the New World or East Indies. By the 16th centuries, records indicate that a well established wine industry on the island was able to supply these ships with wine for the long voyages across the sea.

To prevent the wine from spoiling, neutral grape spirits were added. On the long sea voyages, the wines would be exposed to excessive heat and movement which transformed the flavor of the wine, as the wine producers of Madeira found out when an unsold shipment of wine returned to the island after a round trip. It was found that the customer preferred the taste of this style of wine and Madeira labeled it as "vinho da roda" (wines that have made a round trip) and it became imensly popular.

Madeira producers found that aging the wine on long sea voyages was very costly and began to develop methods on the island to produce the same aged and heated style. They began storing the wines on trestles at the winery or in special rooms known as "estufas" where the heat of island sun would age the wine.

Today, Madeira is noted for its unique winemaking process which involves heating the wine up to temperatures as high as 140°F (60°C) for an extended period of time and deliberately exposing the wine to some levels of oxidation. Due to this unique process, Madeira is a very robust wine that can be quite long lived even after being opened.

The island of Madeira has an oceanic climate with some tropical influences. With high rainfall and average mean temperature of 66°F (19°C), the threats of fungal grape diseases and botrytis rot are constant viticultural hazards. To combat these threats, Madeira vineyards are often planted low trellises known as "latada" that raise the canopy of the vine off the ground similar to a style used in the "Vinho Verde" region of Portugal. The terrain of the mountainous volcanic island is difficult to cultivate with vineyards planted on man-made terraces of red and basaltic bedrock. These terraces, known as "poios" are very similar to the terraces of the "Douro" that make Port wine production possible. The use of mechanical harvesting and vineyard equipment is near impossible making wine grape growing a costly endeavor on the island.

There are four major types of Madeira, named according to the grape variety used. Ranging from the sweetest to the driest style they are: Malvasia (also known as Malmsey or Malvazia), Bual (or Boal), Verdelho, and Sercial. Occasionally one sees Terrantez, Bastardo and Moscatel varieties, although these are now increasingly rare on the island due to the phylloxera epidemic.

Recept for Madeiran honey cake

2009-04-18T10:23:00.006+02:00

Madeira honey cake:

Preparation time: 20 min + overnight

Cooking time: 20 min

Ingredients
25 ml sherry
500 ml golden syrup or honey
melted butter.

CAKE
1 kg cake flour
500 g white sugar
30 ml bicarbonate of soda
37 ml ground cinnamon
5 ml ground cloves
5 ml ground pepper
2 ml salt
5 ml ground ginger
5 ml nutmeg
5 ml ground aniseed
5 ml mixed spice
400 g walnuts, chopped
100 g whole almonds, chopped
75 g sultanas
100 g mixed citrus peel
5 lemons (grated rind only)
10 oranges (grated rind only)
1 orange (juice only)
500 g melted butter
250 ml beer

DECORATION
whole walnuts, almonds and citrus peel

Method:
Place all the dry ingredients, the nuts, sultanas, peel and rind in a large bowl and make a hollow in the centre. Add the orange juice, melted butter, beer, sherry and golden syrup. Mix well until the mixture no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl – the mixture should resemble bread dough.
If it is too slack, add more cake flour; if it is too dry, add more orange juice.

Spread a little melted butter over the dough, cover and leave overnight. Line a few fairly shallow 20 cm cake tins with wax paper and grease well. Divide the dough into 500 g pieces and place a piece in each tin. Press the dough firmly into the tin, spreading evenly, and decorate as desired with walnuts, almonds and citrus peel.

Bake for about 20 minutes at 160 ºC (325 ºF) until brown on top, or until a testing skewer comes out clean when inserted into the cakes. They should still be slightly moist when removed from the oven, however. Cool slightly in the tins before turning out on to a wire rack to cool completely. Wrap well in aluminium foil and store in an airtight container. Makes 8 flat cakes.

Day 5, Swimming in the rock pools at Port Moniz and visiting the caves at Sao Vincent

2009-04-17T21:59:00.030+02:00

On day 4 after we’d seen the rock pools in Port Moniz, we’d decided we would go back the next day and swim, and that’s exactly wat we did. I wanted to snorkel and see all the exotic fish and colors. But I had some reserves because years ago on a holiday in Kenya I had gone snorkeling in the coral reefs around Malindi and I had looked in a hole, and seen the head of a enormous Morally eel, which had then proceeded to attack me and chase me as I swum for my life back to small boat we’d gone out on. Morally eels seem to be the one of the red threads through my life. I’ve met encountered them in all sorts of countries and each time they try to take a bit out of me. This doesn’t help me with this weird fear of swimming I’ve gotwhich dates back to when I was 13 and I saw Jaws in the cinema. That lovely film has given me a practically inbreed fear of sharks, and has made swimming near to impossible for me. It doesn’t matter where I ‘m swimming panic will creep in and I’ll have to get out of the water. This fear is so bad that I even have it swimming in swimming pools.

So we set of for Port Moniz, and yep, the day had hardly begun and the adventure started. As we drove down the road from the bungalows, there were three guys digging a hole in the road. I stopped and they started to sign me to drive by, but we decided to back up and take the other road down. As I tried to maneuver the car into place, to back up, the God Damn car seemed to roll into the hole these guys were digging. I mean wat is this, was this bad driving or did the car have a mind of its own. Ill opt for the second possibility. My driving is great!.

And so there we were stuck in a hole. But I didn’t mind to much because one of the guys was about my age and reasonably good-looking. So I just leaned back and enjoyed the sight. The guys all wanted to help, and we tried all sorts of things from lifting the car and in the end me getting out and standing well clear, and the guys kind of lifting and jump starting the car. After the car was free I got a lot of looks that only guys can plaster on their faces of: “ Woman drivers! Duh”. And so my sightseeing for the morning was over and we said a big bye bye and drove on.

After a while we arrived in port Moniz (which by the way became a kind of special place for us, seeing as we passed it each day). In port Moniz we were able to buy a new memory cards for the camera and we were hungry. In the back streets we found a bar place with a menu called “A Vista restaurant”. The weather was glorious and we sat on the terrace and ordered grilled sardines, and yep the sardines were glorious as well, but wat could you expect from a bar catering for the locals. For me that was the new approach, no more tourist places, just plain inelegant good food places.

I bought some goggles at a nearby shop and we checked out the pool. We went to the rock pool that was free of charge, it was completely empty, no one was swimming, but people were walking on the walkways between and around the pool. I was still worried about sharks, and because when the water was high the pool would be under sea level, I decided to ask first before venturing in. I went to a tiny aquarium place that was next to the pool. I asked about sharks and was told that till now there had never been a problem. And so I decided I’d go for it.

Seeing as there was nowhere to get undressed, I had to do it down by the steps into the pool, and it took for ages as I had to keep stopping and hiding from tourists cameras. When I was ready I looked up and there was a group of portuges watching me, men and woman, and they started cheering me on to get into the water, fuck, there was no way back now. The water was absolutely freezing and the stones very slippery but I made it in, in a not too glamorous way, stumbling and freezing. And then I swam, it was glorious.

Or though the pool looks small it’s not, and it gets exceptionally deep in places, places were sharks could swim. I tried to stay close to the rocks just in case, panic attacks setting in regularly. I climbed out and back in three or four times, my heart beating hard. But no sharks thank god, well not from what I could see. And goddamn it what I did see were about three very uncolourful fish, which were reason id gone to all the trouble anyway.

After the swim we drove on towards Sao Vincente, and its famous caves. Here you take a guided tour of the caves, and well to tell the truth there totally boring.

There’s nothing much to see, just a couple of plants, some water and the imbedded metals in the caves walls. But what was worth the visit was the show beforehand. It’s some kind of virtual show done with mirrors and film and it shows earths development and the formation of Madeira and the rest of its archipelago through it’s the different volcanic eruptions, the show was really impressive and totally absorbing.

After we take the road back into the mountains up past Boca Encumeada, this time passing by as fast as we could and not stopping and up onto the Paul da Serra.

This time there’s no mist and we can see really what it’s like. Its vast and deserted, just one or two cows and the occasional tourist car. By the way paul da Serra is the national park of Madeira. We drive back to Port Moniz take a turn off towards Prazeras then along the mountain roads home.

That evening we head of to a restaurant called O Precpicio, its actually a snack bar alla Portugal and its just about the best food on Madeira. The place is high up, built hanging over a cliff, it’s on the road to Paul do Mar. We had calamari’s and rabbit stew with polenta. Everything was freshly cooked while we waited.

It was a really good way to end the day looking down on Paul do Mar and up at the tops of the mountains.

tradionale food on Madeira.

2009-04-11T11:15:00.036+02:00

Little bit of info on tradional food from Madeira.

The links will take you too diffrent pages.

Receipe for tradional madeiran Honey cake, yummy yummy.

Maderia wine general info. see here.

Honey and lemon punch; Poncha da Madeira.

Tradional Madeira bread; Bolo do caco.

madeira beef cooked on bayleaf; Espetada.

Fried cornmeal recipe; Milho frito. god i love this stuff, eeemmmmm.

Bread soup; acorda soup.

Scabbard fillet with banana; a really boring dish.

maranaded and fryed pigs meat stew with garlic recipe; carne de vinho ealhos.

Society and Culture

2009-04-10T12:19:00.009+02:00

The region of Madeira has a total population of just under 250,000 inhabitants, the majority of whom live on the main island of Madeira where the population density is 337/km²; meanwhile only around 4,500 live on the Porto Santo Island where the population density is 112/km².

When the Portuguese discovered the island of Madeira in 1419, it was completely uninhabited by humans. The island was settled by Portuguese people, especially farmers from the Minho region, meaning that Madeirans (Portuguese: Madeirenses), as they are called, are ethnic Portuguese, though they have developed their own distinct regional identity and cultural traits.

The Minho province in Portugal. It is the upmost province on the coastal side of Portugal bordering onto and into Spain. Minho is a historical province of Portugal. It was established as an official province in 1936 and dissolved in 1976. It consisted of 23 municipalities, with its capital in the city of Braga. Today, the area would include the districts of Braga and Viana do Castelo. Minho also has some Celtic influence and shares many cultural traits with neighbouring Galicia. The region was part of the Roman Province and early mediaeval Kingdom of Gallaecia. Historical remains of Celtic Minho include Briteiros Iron Age Hillfort, the largest Gallaecian native stronghold in the Entre Douro e Minho region, in North Portugal.

The following people were either born or have lived part of their lives in Madeira

Cristiano Ronaldo, world class football player. Manchester United and Portugal midfielder.

Cristopher Columbus, navigator

Fátima Lopes, international fashion designer.

Aires de Ornelas e Vasconcelos, former Archbishop of the former Portuguese colonial enclave Goa (in India)

Ana da Silva, founding member of the post-punk band The Raincoats

António de Abreu, naval officer and navigator

Catarina Fagundes, Olympic athlete for windsurf

João Rodrigues, Olympic athlete for windsurf

Fábio Machado, Mandolinist

Francisco de Vasconcelos, Poet

Henrique Franco, Painter

Herberto Hélder, Poet

João Miguel Alves Pestana, Computer Engineer

Joe Berardo, Portuguese millionaire, and art collector

John Santos, Photographer

José Travassos Valdez, 1st Count of Bonfim, governor in 1827-1828

José Vicente de Freitas, military and politician

Karl of Austria, Austrian monarch

Luís Jardim, Producer of music

Lourdes de Castro, Visual artist

Marcos Freitas International table tennis player

Moisés Henriques, former Australian Under-19 Captain and current NSW Blues cricketer

2009-04-08T08:32:00.008+02:00

Ok people, this videos has got as far as i can see, nothing to do with Madeira, except that i found it on a different Madeira blog. Liked it and went got it on You tube.

Its street artists from around the world singing Stand By Me.

Please enjoy your flight! Madeira airport used to be the most dangerous in the world. Now its second. This airport is known as the "other Kai Tak" because of it's very difficult approach.
Its also built hanging over the sea cliff, on kind of stilts.

landing from inside the cockpit.

Day 4 continued even more: what a long day it was.

2009-03-19T10:26:00.012+01:00

Day 4 continued once again: we headed inland thinking it was just a short drive away to Boca da Encumeada. This was a steep journey up: soon we were 960 meters high and still going up. When the land flattened out we were on the Paul da Serra plateau, which is also the national parc da Madeira. It is a vast area on the eastern side of Madeira running into the western side where the volcano is, dividing the north from the south. Once again the scenery had changed. Into a heavy mist: we couldn’t even see our car headlights. It was freezing cold and soon we were 1250 meter high, and luckily this area was completely desolate, because I couldn’t see a thing. We did pass one car with hunters. We drove on getting out to take the occasional photo of….yes mist!

It was all very exciting until I suddenly heard a ping, and I looked at my petrol gauge - which was on empty. What! 30 minutes ago it had been half full. As usual we panicked and had the usual screaming match. What were we going to do? Go back? go on? Where exactly where we anyway?. This was a really serious dilemma. We decided to drive on thinking we’d soon find a village or so. But we didn’t even know exactly which road we were on. It was also about five o’clock and would be dark in two hours which only added to our feeling of panic. Suddenly in front of us appeared a traffic light. What! This was really in the middle of nowhere! There were no cars for miles and there probably never would be. Beyond the traffic light we could see a shape moving. As we sat and waited for the light to change, we realized it was some kind of bizarre road works and that there were a couple of people digging and doing obscure things by the road side. I decided to take a chance and venture into the freezing mist to ask if they had any petrol to spare. My god was it cold. As I approached I suddenly didn’t feel so sure about asking these weirdo’s for petrol. So I ran back, got in the car, started up and drove on by. We couldn’t help laughing at the situation, those poor guys, working 1250 high up in the freezing mist till obviously quite late. So on we drove, on and on, forever and ever. There was nothing to see anywhere, no landmarks, no villages, nothing. At some point we came to a cross roads, no signpost as usual, we had to decide left or right. We chose left, hoping we’d find a village soon. Our precious petrol was not going to last much longer but we had no choice but to drive on. Suddenly we came to a bend in the road which cut into the rocks and there in front of us was the steep road down and off the Paul da Serra plateau. Even better there was a small bar situated on a view point that looked out over the rugged mountain tops. I decided to go in and ask if they could sell me some petrol. Inside was just a girl and some hunters, and as I tried to explain our dilemma their faces changed into sneers and they just ignored me. So I got back into the car, and started on plan B, rolling downhill with the motor off. Actually, even though we knew it was dangerous it was fun, so who cares. My grandfather in England did it all the time, to save on petrol, and if he could do it so could I! We felt that, as long as it was just downhill, it shouldn’t be too bad. Which of course it wasn’t, being 1200 meters up, so I started switching between engine on and off, not being sure if I was actually saving petrol or using even more.

On one of the stretches downhill, we saw an enormous hotel in front of us. God almighty, it was Boca da Encumeada, so we had finally made it to the restaurant, but couldn’t really stop and eat there, till we got petrol. So I stopped to ask inside if they could spare some petrol, but got the normal sneering response that seems to be plastered on the faces of the population of these mountain dwellers. I got back in the car and the journey continued, rolling down the mountain side in neutral. It seemed to go on and on for ages. But the journey is beautiful, as we began to realize only Madeira can be.

Finally, after a while, we were down the mountain, rolling into a place called Riberia Bravo, which is on the south coast of the island. We turned on the engine, drove, saw a petrol station on the other side of the of the road, went round a roundabout and were there. We filled up and decided to head back up the mountain to the Hotel/Restaurant Boca da Encumeada. On the way back up the mountain we passed a place that looked as though it would be a good place to eat ., I stopped and went to the door which was firmly closed - eemm very inviting! So I rang the bell and a girl came to the door. When I asked if we could get some dinner, she looked me up and down, told me they wouldn’t be open for another hour, then changed her mind and told me they were totally booked and slammed the door shut in my face. Wow, were these people friendly!

So we drove on further up the mountain side to the big place we’d seen earlier and our day long destination point, Boca da Encumeada.

We got there finally stiff from all the driving and famished. We were, amazingly, the first customers, and there seemed to be a large table with a buffet set out that looked good. But we decided to take the menu. We sat down and they brought us our drinks then, gradually people started to arrive, all very obviously not from the island, in other words unsuspecting tourists. I had a starter which was prawn cocktail, and what can I say except it looked disgusting. I ate a few prawns. And started to dread what our dinner was going to be like.

Suddenly big buses were stopping outside and masses of tourists filed in and went to the buffet table. Our dinner came, and I was facing the entrance where the till was and the place where the waiters stood and chatted. As I sat and watched the waiters, I realized one of the young ones was giving a girl a lesson on how to spit in the food. God damn and bloody hell, he wasn’t even making any pretence, he just couldn’t care less if he was seen. What were we all, but tourists and fodder!

I spat my food out onto the table, got some shocked looks from other diners, stood up, paid (but why!), and left. I was furious. Well at least the spit had been cheap.

I stood for a while and looked out at the really marvelous view which was luring tourists to this pit of a restaurant. Jesus what a deception.

We got back in the car and drove further up the mountain, still hungry and feeling sick, back over the top then straight down to Sao Vincente and the north side of the island with its wild beauty. It was getting dark, but we could see that along some of the coastal roads the waves were reaching the roads and that they were closing the roads, so once again we ended up driving through mountain roads and tunnels. Back to heaven - D Amparo.

Day 4 continued: Adventures from Port Moniz to I’heus Ribeira da Janela.

2009-03-05T17:39:00.034+01:00

Jeez what a title. And yes, it was one big adventure and one very long day. The driving in Madeira was by now going much better and we decided we wanted to head for Boca da Encumeada for an early dinner. The reason we wanted to head that way was because the views are noted as being totally brilliant and there’s a mention in one of the folders at the bungalow about a restaurant that serves traditional Madeira food. We were hungry after our walk so we got it into our heads that we could pop there quickly, eat and get back to D’Amparo early to rest out.

We headed out driving towards Port Moniz, which was a really nice journey, but completely on steep mountain roads. We were still quite disorientated about the island, where places were, distances and what to expect. Also the journey was from the south side of the island to the north side. On the map this looked once again not far, but up and down those squiggly roads it was a long journey. The island’s scenery changed the further north we went. The milder side of the island is the south side and because the capital is on that side, they had put some money into the roads, tunnels and villages. But the northern side is rougher, cooler and less civilized. You could say it starts at Port Moniz and runs right over to Ponta de Sao Lourenco. Over the whole vacation we never made it that far and in fact on that side of the island we never got further than Santana. Which means we missed a lot.

Finally we reached Port Moniz, and the views going down the mountain into the port were marvelous. Later I read that the government had just put money into the town to attract tourists and that it had been a total dump beforehand. We had to get some milk so we headed into the town, parked and looked around. We walked down to the boulevard on the coast; it looked like the usual tourist trap. Bad restaurants with shark-like waiters. We decided to give it a miss and just keep to the views and grocery shops. There was of course no beach, but there were rock pools, one of which was quite busy - you had to pay to get in, hahah the grand total of 1 euro. The other was just a wild, rough rock pool, unprotected and open to anyone who dared to go in. We decided that for that day, we’d keep to our plan but that we would come back the next day to swim. It was beautiful, and I still wanted to go snorkeling.

Here are some photos of the rock pool at Port Moniz.

We found a tiny supermarket/bar in the back streets, and went in for our milk - no milk! Oh well, I was getting used to this by now in Madeira. I asked at the counter for milk and this really talkative old lady told me in nearly perfect English the dilemma of Madeira. There was hardly any fresh milk on the whole island. Madeira had in the past been a big dairy country, producing lots of fresh products, but to produce milk the cows had to be well looked after. One of the things involved was the cutting of the grass and keeping it cropped for the cows to eat, but the younger generation didn’t want to do this boring work, and were either leaving the island for the mainland or finding jobs in other industries. Which is why, although there were cows on the island, they had stopped producing. It was now so bad that there was just no fresh Madeira milk and it had to be imported. I thought of Prazeres and the church there, and realized just how important a church with modern ideas can be in these small communities in our brave new world. We set off again along the coast and came upon Ribeira da Janela, I had read that there was a camping there and I wanted to look at it and see if it was any good in case I should want to return to Madeira. So once more we side-tracked off our road, taking the sign for the camping. The road led to the coast, and wow, it looked as though there might be a beach here. Yes there was a beach, made of rather big stones and which was littered with rubbish and oil. This was apparently a great place to surf and if you kept your eyes away from the beach and on the sea it was understandable why. It was a rough, rocky part of the coast, with large wild rolling waves. Also when we walked to the beach we noticed a Maria statue high up in a wall of volcanic stone. I reckon this was to watch over the swimmers and surfers, and which could well mean lots of accidents here. The camp site was behind the beach on the opposite side of the car park. It was pretty gruesome, there was one tent and the ground was sloping, which makes for really bad sleeping. Also it was quite isolated and it was scary. There was one building that looked as though it had something to do with the camping and another big building looking like a factory or waterworks which was between the sea and the camping. The actual town of Ribera ad Janela was another place we never made it to - or maybe we did pass it but I just hadn’t noticed it.

Below are photos of the camping and that marvelous bit of coast. The first two are the camping.

Day 4: The walk and its 24 degrees with splatters of rain

2009-02-23T13:40:00.006+01:00

After reading some of the information maps written by other guests at the bungalow we decide to try one of the famous walks of Madeira. All over Madeira walks have been set out for tourists. The most famous walks are along the levadas, narrow manmade waterways that carry water to the agricultural regions. The Portuguese started building levadas in the 16th century. Today the levadas supply water to the southern parts of the island. There are over 1350 miles of levadas on Madeira and they provide a remarkable network of walking paths.

The walks in the area around the bungalows were devised by the bungalow owners. We chose a short walk of an hour into the mountains above the bungalow. We headed out at 10 o’clock. We calculated that this walk would take a little while longer than the planned hour as everything seems to take longer in Madeira (hahaha, not to mention the fact that we were two unhealthy people who never walk anywhere). We headed up a clay road above the bungalows. Within about 5 minutes we were broken. God it was steep. There were butterflies and grasshoppers everywhere and we took it slowly. I must say on this first part of the walk we couldn’t see much of the views but when we left the road we came upon the traditional Portuguese landscape. The mountains covered with forests, a gorgeous field of flowers and grasses, with? yes if you’ve ever been to Portugal, you guessed it, old dumped rubbish, freezers, washing machines, chemicals, the whole works. Oh well.

The walk turned out to be very different from the walks through the woods I’d grown so used to in American movies. The movies where girls dressed only in underwear run through the woods chased by the local serial killer. What a disappointment. Oh well, like I said we were in Portugal and everything in Portugal is different. Then I contemplated taking off my clothes and making a run for it in the hope that this might mystically produce a rabid killer but decide against it when I remembered I’m 47 and I’d probably scare the machete killer to death. And so we trudged on forever and forever upwards.

As we walk we realize that all around us are wild mimosa, eucalyptus, olive and chestnut trees. We finally come to a levada. This levada was called Our Levada by the bungalow owners because it was the levada which supplied their land with water. We start walking along the levada thinking it would take us back to the bungalow. What we hadn’t realized is that Our Levada was kilometers long and we had taken the wrong direction. But not realizing this at the time I just thought about the “Oh so famous levada” and how I was not too impressed with it. The levada took us out of the forest and we came upon a tiny stone house in the middle of nowhere. Here and there were banana trees. We came upon another little house made out of scrap metal. This was how many of Madeira’s old population lived, in little houses they’d built themselves in the mountains, trying to survive on the few veggies and fruit they grew.

After a while it began to dawn on us that we were once again hopelessly lost. We turned around and took the other direction along the levada.
We walked and walked for hours, the levada taking us across valleys and mountain sides. The views are marvelous and we picked and ate fruit on the way. And then - we suddenly saw two other people walking the levada. Obviously not Portuguese, with their light complexions. WOW we realized it’s our neighbours from the bungalows and that we were back on our mountain. And so we made it back, a few hours more than the planned 1 hour. Pretty pleased we’d done the walk because in the end I have to admit it was impressive

Day 2 and we woke up.......

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to fantastic weather, a marvelous bungalow and Martin’s garden. Amazing. Yes somewhere I’d done something right. And guess what, we could even see the sea in the distance and as we sat there in October basking in the morning sun our moods gradually changed, was this going to be the holiday from hell? or a godsend heaven?. The only obstacle that seemed to face us now was how to get the geeky stuff I’d bought back in Holland to work, so that we could play our digital music collection for all our neighbors . Well, I’ll tell you now that was a problem that only grew and was never solved. (Now back in Holland I’ve taken it all back to the shop in disgust).

Anyway, back to the story, we finally met Martin, the owner of the bungalows. He was a tall Swede, looking very healthy and he told us about his little heaven on earth. First he told us that he’d be selling up in a few years and I was flabbergasted, WHAT? How could this be possible? It was gorgeous here. We had just got here and thought ourselves very lucky - and we were eyeing it up for possible future holidays. But Martin told us he was getting older and had been living at Do Amparo for 12 years. The marvelous garden all around us (which I hadn’t thought of being a city girl) took work and was causing numerous aches and pains. He then told us that we’d be the last people to stay at the bungalows who had booked via an agent. And the grizzly story of his experiences with travel agencies who seemed to be busy ripping everyone off left right and centre unfolded. Yes while this guy broke his back building four bungalows and creating this heaven on earth, he had to put up with imbecilic travel agencies, money wolves, that often as not wouldn’t pay him the money they owed him or were consistently late with paying . How stupid could people be? Here was paradise, and they were losing the opportunity to offer it to their clients because of their greed.

Later Martin told us the place where’d we find the supermarket, the one we missed the day before and we set off. It was at a place called Calheta, which was on the coast. An easy 13,5 kilometers on the map I had. Yeah right, where I come from it doesn’t take a hour and a half to drive 13,5 kilometers. But then the map I had didn’t show the correct distances as it seemed to be a pirate map drawn by a kid. And this kid obviously had never been on Madeira because he’d missed out the very important fact that this was one rollercoaster island.

And so we drove. In fact I must admit I was gradually starting to get the hang of this mountain driving, feeling very daring going 30km around twists and bends. What was more amazing I was even getting to like it. Finally we arrived at Calheta, and what can I say, yes it was a great big hotel on a yachting bay, and that wasn’t so bad, but my God you should have seen the beach. It was a man made monstrosity. I mean it was so awful I can’t even describe it. Well I’ll try. The hotel was right on the water, but as I said, Madeira has no beaches (well we found out later it has one), so they have built a wall made from massive concrete blocks some 25 meters into the water reaching back around to the hotel, and they’d dumped some sand there, put up a few umbrellas and hey presto, a beach like only the Portuguese could come up with. Inside this so called beach construction was a strip of water, yes sea water, but cut off from the sea by the attractive concrete blocks. So as you can imagine the whole thing was not to attractive.

While we sat on the dock to the yachting area, drinking, yes very cheap coffee (50 cents), to my horror, I saw a minivan pull up and a small group of tourists step out. You could see they’d been sitting in the van for ages by the way they hobbled, slithered and crawled direction beach. But what had shocked me, was what the driver had called after them “There’s the beach and we leave again in 30 minutes so be ready”. God it looked like these people had paid atrocious prices to some travel agent to find out that their holiday was one long car journey, with a glance of concrete blocks posing as a beach.

It had become a very hot day. The supermarket was opposite the hotel, we got some stuff, had another coffee. Then left the tourist trap from hell, driving back to our bungalow and paradise. By the time we got there it was nearly evening so we set off to a lighthouse nearby at Ponto do Prago. Which surprise! surprise ! turned out to be abandoned and a dump. So we walked along the cliffs watched some birds of prey, ( I never found out what type they were) and then set off for a village Jardim Do Mar which is famous for its flowers and the place from which Madeira gets its reputation as an flowery island. It’s true there everywhere, wild and cultivated. Mostly beautiful and exotic, just growing by the roadside. But enough of the useless information, by the time we got there, it was dark and we were famished, so if there were flowers, we couldn’t see them. We went to a restaurant called Tammar and this one goes on my DON’T MISS list. It was great. With octopus, calamari’s, and shrimps as starters and I tried the national fish dish Espada which is some kind of deep sea monstrosity. Before it arrived I was enthusiastic, but as usual, with most things Portuguese it was the usual nothing much. If you want the truth, what it was, actually a slice of very bony grilled fish, grilled with a slice of banana on it. Oh well, you can’t win em all. But despite my critique, which is about the national dish of Madeira, the restaurant was very good. I also posted a little treat on this page, get a load of the photo above, that’s the national dish.
Later we walked in the pitch black down to the sea, which appeared to be a promenade. Hoping for a nice surprise, we leaned over the wall, and shit! It was just massive concrete blocks. So for that day the elusive Madeira sea was just a noise in the distance behind concrete, and nothing else.

Martin’s Garden

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On this page I’m just posting some photos of the garden. They are not even very good photos, which is a pity. They don’t do justice to the garden, flowers and trees. But you can get an idea of Madeira in October. I suppose what’s missing in these photos is all the other flowers growing in Madeira, and the Datura trees, the bamboo, and the banana trees which are growing all over the place.

Geological Origin and Volcanism of Madeira.

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Geological Origin and Volcanism

The island’s location is the Atlantic Ocean and its coordinates are 32°44′00″N 16°58′00″W/ 32.733333, -16.966667 and 32°44′00″N 16°58′00″W/32.733333, -16.966667.

Madeira and its sister islands (archipelagos) are actually just the peaks of an impressive mountain range rising thousands of meters from the ocean floor. Madeira Island was formed by a massive shield volcano, rising 6 km from off the Atlantic Ocean. The underwater mountain range is called Tore, which is on the African plate. Its rock age is 5 million years and its last eruption was 6,500 years ago, the volcano formed on top of an east-west rift in the oceanic crust. Construction of the bulk of the volcano began during the Miocene Epoch. This continued into the Pleistocene until 700,000 years ago. A study carried out in 1976 by the scientist Mitchell-Thome shows several distinct stages in the development of the archipelago, dividing its formation into four periods and structures. The fourth and final eruption was decisive in forming the current archipelago and its basalt-rich soil layers and the permanent geographical structure of Madeira was formed. After this there was extensive erosion producing two large amphitheaters open to south in the central part of the island. Later volcanic activity resumed, producing scoria cones and lava flows.

Peaks.

The island's highest peaks are the Pico Ruivo de Santana (1,861 m), Pico das Torres (1,851 m), Pico do Arieiro (1,818 m), Ruivo do Paúl (1,640 m) and the Bica de Cana (1,620 m).Also one third of the island is more than 1,000 metres above sea level and with its 580-metre steep vertical cliff, the Cabo Girão is one of the highest headlands in the world.!

Soil conditions.

On Madeira, volcanic soil is rich in basalt, lava, trachite, tuff, scoria and conglomerate. Over the centuries, these rocks eroded under the weather's influence. This is how clusters of weathering clay gradually emerged. The clay is rich in organic materials such as iron and magnesium, as well as phosphorus, yet poor in potassium. Seeds transported by the wind and birds were responsible for sowing on the island. The island is densely populated with forests. On Madeira, the rivers have a strong sloping gradient: up to 10%. Due to this difference in levels and the composition of the soil, Madeira has deep valleys and large basins eroded by water. The water falls on the island are fantastic. On the northern part of the island they can reach 100 meters deep.

Sao Vincent.

If you are really interested in volcanic activity, you can visit the caves at Sao Vincent on the north side of the island. The caves are not so interesting for sightseers as it is just a tour, and the caves are not very exciting. But in the caves plants grow, the seeds having crept through the volcanic rock. What really was breath taking is a virtual show before the walk through the caves during which you see a fantastically built earth’s crust (all done with mirrors and very convincing) and its volcanic activity. They show you in a lot of detail how the volcano formed the island, period by period. I was flabbergasted by this show and tried to get a film of it. No such luck, they are keeping it to themselves. If you do go to see the caves, and you are short of time, like I was, turning up too late, you should consider missing the caves and just seeing the show.

The bungalows

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This page is dedicated to the bungalows. Those marvelous bungalows, which are made up of one big room, one smaller one (the bedroom) and a toilet/shower room. The bungalows have a permanent supply of hot water. Everything is provided like plates, cups, coffee machine, toasters, eeemmm, let’s just keep it short and say its fully furnished. But one thing more, there are radiators for the colder seasons. The owners have thought of everything. Even books with lists of what to do and where. As far as I could make out the bungalows had two minus points: the first was the damp, being 700 meters high up has its disadvantages, but like I said there are radiators for that. The second was insects, in the form of some black grasshoppers (small) and also some kind of coachroach. These were certainly not the kind of coachroaches I knew, you know those great big things that Portugal is full of or the German coachroaches, the ones that take on the behavior of their namesake, and infest and take over vast populated areas. No, they were small and seemed to get in from outside, under the door. seemingly living in the wild, maybe a new variant, who knows. Anyway they were not too much of a pain, there would be one or two each day, which crawled in from outside and we just picked them up and flicked them out of the door and back to mummy nature. The garden surrounding the bungalows is very large and has lots of fruits that are just there to be picked and eaten. In October while we were there, there were apples, oranges, lemons, limes and orange araza.

Anyway you’ll be glad to find I’m going to shut up, and leave you to a page of photos made up into two slide shows. The first are views of the bungalows, and the others are photos of views from the bungalows (some of these pics are gorgeous sunsets), all taken on different days.

Day one: The journey to the bungalows.

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Amazingly everything was on time. The planes (just about), and the car was there and waiting. Now just getting to the bungalow, which shouldn’t be too difficult. I had telephoned the owner but his English was not too great and from what I could gather he was German or Swedish or something. He advised me to pop to the supermarket on the way to the bungalow and gave me the instructions on how to get there. So we were all set and ready to go. As Madeira was a small island, getting to the bungalow should take less than a hour. Well, that’s what I thought when looking at the vague map Id got from the rent-a-car company. As the bungalows were less than a quarter of the way round the whole island, I thought it would be all very straightforward.

So off we went, on this express route which would take us around the coast to do Amporo (the bungalows). We left the airport at around six o’clock. It was still light. It took a while to get from the airport to the capital, Fuchel and I didnt have a clue where we were going or what the road rules were in Madeira. There were loads of lorries and once past Fuchel the roads started to go uphill, and even worse it all seemed to be tunnels, long, long tunnels. Fuck... there were no views to see. Because at first I got stuck behind slow moving lorries and didn’t really know how to drive up a hill, Holland being so flat, my car would stop on a hill and start rolling backwards. I had cars hooting and queuing up behind me. It didn’t take long before I found the first and second gear, but I didn’t feel too comfortable changing gear on a hill. Soon it got dark, and we hadn’t a clue where we were. The further we got away from the capital the older the tunnels became. Sometimes we’d get out of a tunnel to go around a roundabout and back into another tunnel. Most of the time I’d have to go three or four times around the roundabouts while we tried to work out which way to go. By now we were screaming at each other. We started to realize that Madeira’s road signs were not all too clear and they were generally in the very dark tunnels up on the ceiling. I started to doubt whether I was going to be able to drive in Madeira at all.

Very soon it was dark - pitch-black - with cars speeding along, and me doing 30mph, and that was when we were going forward, not when the car was rolling back down a hill. We passed by a car crash in a tunnel, which didn’t exactly boost my confidence. And by now we were getting hungry. It was already 9 o’clock and the supermarket would be closed.

So we stopped at a roadside restaurant. It’s called Madeline da Mar. And it’s now on my DON’T GO TO LIST. We sat down and the guy bought a plate of fresh fish, showed it to us, saying “All fresh! All fresh!” . Which was completely true. It was all fresh. Very interesting, but I don’t understand why he showed it to us when it certainly wasn’t what we got! Instead, we got a plate of old dried up fish, like shoe leather. “Yes”, I thought “were in Portugal!” We paid quickly and left, rushing into the first tunnel where we could stop half- way through and be sick.

And so we drove on screaming at each other, hungry, and stopping to be being sick. Finally the express way seemed to stop and there was a sign saying ”Ponta Do Prago”, which was apparently where the bungalows D’Amparo were. Thank God we were near. We followed the route and now we were on steep mountain roads with no lights. It went on and on. It was now about 10:30, but ok, we were near.

And then, goddamn it, I needed to go to the bog. We’d have to stop somewhere but everywhere was closed and it was all dark. On and on we drove, me dying for the bog. Finally in a valley there was a small place to stop the car. I jumped out, struggling to find somewhere in the dark to do my business. I couldn’t wait, so I just crouched down and went. And my god it never seemed to end. It was Gi-normous, really! Then my eyes got used to the dark and to my horror, I was doing a dump in one of those places the Portuguese have for worshipping a saint with an alter and a freshwater spring to bathe in.

Within a second I was back in the car and driving like wildfire. Finally around 12:30 we got to Ponta Do Prago. It was a tiny village and I did not have a clue where the bungalows were. We didn't know what to do. And then the godsend came, obviously because of my little gift a while ago.

It came in the form of a police car. The police car drove by and I ended up running after it screaming and shouting. It stopped and there were two cops and I explained my problem about the elusive D’Amparo bungalows. The two of them discussed it and one of them (the ugly one who looked like he came from a small isolated island) started pulling faces to show that he was not prepared to help two stupid tourists, having much better things to do in Ponta Do Prago??? Eeemmmmmm. The other one (the clever, good-looking one) told us to follow, so we did, and oh no.... we were going back towards my gift to God. Luckily we just drove on past it, finally stopping at an old road into the mountains. We were told to go right to the top and there we'd find the bungalows. I wondered for a second if it was one of those Portuguese jokes, but did as I was told. And yes, right at the top we found it..... a tiny car-park and the bungalows. We were home! Later we were told that the whole journey should take 1 hour 15 minutes. It took us six and a half hours. We also realized we would never have been able to find the bungalows without God’s divine intervension.

info for geeks going on holiday

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This is a step by step guide on how to prepare for a holiday on a small volcanic island where there is nothing to do. So yes, being the city girl I am I was going to have to prepare for this holiday well.

Step one: start by filling your iPod with all the music you can find. Don’t forget to change your music files into ACC files. This, depending on how much music you have, is a process of days or even weeks. So give yourself time to get it done

Step two: Buy a few games from iTunes, 5 euro each. Good way to get through a boring holiday on some dump of an island.
Wow: I downloaded a free game first, one game. and I put it on my IPod but it wouldn’t work. What was wrong? Hours later, still trying to solve the problem, I went back to the online to the ITunes store. I read the whole description on the game. Bloody hell, it was only compatible with iPod Touch and I Phone. Shit. So why wasn’t it compatible with all IPods? HUH APPLE? In fact you have to be very careful what you buy on the iTunes website in the way of games ’coz they are not compatible with all iPods. So yes, after reading everything carefully on the ITunes website, I bought a few games that were compatible with my iPod classic. Compatible games for all other versions of iPod except I phone and I touch are not free. Hahaha what a surprise.

Step three: Try the podcasts on iTunes, they’re free to download, and they should fill in the hours of nothingness for a while.

Step four: Now your iPod is ready, how are you going to listen to your music? You can take 20 kilos baggage on the plane, so look around for some compact small stereo boxes that are compatible with your iPod. Eeeemm not much on the market eh? No that’s because trying to get stuff that’s compatible with your iPod is near to impossible. Anyway, read first the reviews from other people who have bought the products. This will keep you busy for a couple of days, but you won’t make mistakes. Well I found the Adapt Travel-X speaker for 55 euro. There are two versions - small and big. As I said I got the X version. It was tiny. I decided to try it out, wow what common sense. My first experience with this product was to put in the batteries. Shouldn’t be too complicated. So I opened the bottom cover, which is so small you have to have midget fingers to get it open. Then I tried to take the batteries out. It was near to impossible. But Adapt had thought of everything and put a little ribbon in there to help you pull the batteries out. Thank you Adapt for being so clever. So I pulled on the ribbon and fuc, it was caught up in the little metal coils inside the battery compartment which then became uncoiled. So I tried to save what I could and pushed the coils back into place and hoped for the best. Wow it still worked. So I tried it out. In the open air. aaaaand, the sound was pretty bad, in fact it was crap. And then we noticed that if you sat right next to the Adapt Travel-X speaker with the sound on at its highest and turned the sound of the iPod to its highest you could hear the music, but from 30 cm away it was just a blurred noise and from half a meter away it was unhearable.
WOW does that possibly mean that after all that research and reading all of the reviews that they were nonsense? Maybe I should take into account in the future that product companies probably write their own reviews and that I shouldn’t take them too seriously. Damn Damn Damn.

Step five: So next I thought about the chargers for my phone and for my iPod, And it looked like I was going to have to take a whole load of cables and wires with me. I didn’t like that thought. So I checked, yes you’ve got it, the good old internet again. Wow, great, I found the Idapt, universal charger. So I did the research. The Idapt seems very promising, that is when you read the product information and reviews. It’s an adapter that gets delivered with 7 different Tips or connecters for your different makes of mobile telephones, iPods, MP3 players and what not. So there’s a tip for Sony Ericsson, an iPod tip, USB tip, Nokia and so on and you can take out the tips and put different ones in. You can charge three things at once, this thing does everything .…. In fact if you believe the reviews we all need this thing. So I bought it. And I was stupid enough not to try it out first. Soooooooooo when I got to my bungalow on Madeira and put in the tips for my iPod and Sony Ericsson and plugged it in, it didn’t work. My mobile apparatus didn’t switch over into recharge mode. So I decided to wait, maybe they were loading but it just wasn’t visible. No way, nothing. So I touched my iPod to check it out and got a electric shock. My telephone was the same, electric shocks, plus my iPod and mobile were trilling from the electricity going through them.

So there I was with all my fantastic geeky gear none of which worked except my Sony Ericsson telephone that I couldn’t recharge anyway.
And remember in Step Two I bought the games on ITunes. Well my flight to Madeira was about 5 hours so on the plane I decided to play a game, one of the ones I’d paid 5 Euros for. It was called Tetrus. And yeah, you got it my iPod crashed and whatever I tried I couldn’t get it to work again for the whole journey

Booking a holiday on the Internet.

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I bought my ticket from an online company, Dominotravel.nl. What a great experience. First I made it difficult for them by changing my holiday dates once or twice. But in the end I managed to get it right, what I wanted, and how long. I changed it from 15 to 10 days (thanks to Mash for the ‘Madeira - Boring as hell info’). I had the feeling Dominotravel.nl were getting mighty sick of me with all my changes, but to tell the truth I couldn’t care less. So I booked a return flight for two to Madeira via Lisbon, with a bungalow for 10 days and a cheap car. After booking I got the prices of what it was going to cost from Dominotravel.nl and I thought “OK, that’s that then”. I had asked for a flight getting to Madeira as early as possible, and in their first draft of the costs, they’d done this.

But then Dominotravel.nl decided to ruin the holiday before I'd even left. Well they didn't really ruin it, they just started to make me very nervous about the whole thing. I mean just how trustworthy was this Dominotravel.nl that I'd found on the internet? First after booking but not yet paying for the holiday, I got the message from them to say that the plane I wanted was not available and it would have to be a later one. So I said OK. Then I got the next message that because the plane would be arriving late in Madeira (after 12 at night) I would have to pay extra to pick up the car (55 euro, in fact, which is more than the rent of the car for one day). Oh well that’s not too bad, I thought. So I went ahead with this, no bad feelings.

But at the same time I was looking for a holiday insurance and Dominotravel.nl seemed to have (if the prices they quote on their website are to be believed) the cheapest. So I decided to get that too. And then it started.......Justas I was about to pay for the insurance, I got this pathetic telephone call saying they (Dominotravel.nl) had got the wrong price, and in fact it was at least double the price they’d given me. So I politely told them to stuff it. And the question marks started popping up in my mind.....Dominotravel.nl ?????????? I started to wish I hadn’t embarked on this quest, but it was too late. If I didn’t do it this way the holiday was off. So I paid the enormous amount of about 1600 euro like a lame dog.

Then they had the nerve to telephone me at some ungodly time in the morning to say that they couldn’t get me the late flight and it would have to be a earlier one. HUH??????? So now we’re talking about the flight I had originally wanted which according to them wasn’t available whereby I'd have to go later and pay extra for the car. What what what????

Yes and to top it all, it would now cost me an extra 160 euro for the earlier flight, and they couldn’t book it till they'd got the money.

But I must give them this... one thing they did say at least was that I wouldn’t have to pay the extra for the car.

And all I can say is “Thank you Dominotravel.nl for giving me the feeling everything was going to go wrong, before I had even left”.

A short history of Madeira.

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Henry the navigator: what a good looking guy!

Pre-Portuguese times: Possible mentions of Madeira.

Gaius or Caius Plinius Secundus (23 AD) better known as Pliny the Elder mentions certain Purple Islands, the position of which with reference to the Fortunate Isles, also called the Isles of the Blessed could refer to Madeira, the canaries and Cape Verde.

Plutarch (Sertorius, 75 AD) referring to the military commander Quintus Sertorius (d. 72 BC), relates that after his return to Cadiz, "he met seamen recently arrived from Atlantic islands, two in number, divided from one another only by a narrow channel and distant from the coast of Africa 10,000 furlongs. They are called Isles of the Blest." The estimated distance from Africa, and the closeness of the two islands, seems to indicate Madeira and Porto Santo.

Also a romantic tale does the rounds about two lovers, Robert Machim and Anna d'Arfet who fled from England to France in 1346, in the reign of King Edward III of England, but were driven off their course by a violent storm, and cast on the coast of Madeira at the place subsequently named Machico in memory of one of them. On the evidence of a portolan dated 1351, preserved at Florence, Italy, it would appear that Madeira had been discovered long before that date by Portuguese vessels under Genoese captains.

The Portuguese discovery of Madeira.

The discoveries of Porto Santo and Madeira were first described by Gomes Eanes de Zurara in his “Chronica da Descoberta e Conquista da Guiné” and Arkan Simaan in French in his novel based on Azurara's Chronicle “L’Écuyer d’Henri le Navigateur”,

Madeira was discovered by two captains of Henry the Navigator of Portugal at some time between 1418 and 1420. They were João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira. In 1419 the two fleets of the captains were driven by a storm to the island they named Porto Santo. They gave this name (meaning Holy Harbour) in gratitude for their rescue from shipwreck. The next year an expedition was sent to populate the island and the two captains, together with Captain Bartolomeu Perestrello, took possession of the islands on behalf of the Portuguese crown.

The islands started to be settled circa 1420 or 1425. In September 23, 1433, the name Ilha da Madeira (Madeira Island or "wood island") appears on a map, for the first time, in a document.

To populate the islands the three captain-majors brought their families, a small group of people of the minor nobility, a group of people of modest conditions and some old prisoners of the kingdom. To gain the minimum conditions for the development of agriculture they had to rough-hew a part of the dense forest of laurisilva and to construct a large number of canals (levadas), since in some parts of the island there was water in excess while in other parts it was scarce. In the earliest times, fish constituted about half of the settlers' diet, together with vegetables and fruit. The first local agricultural activity with some success was the raising of wheat. Initially, the colonists produced wheat for their own sustenance, but later began to export wheat to Portugal.

Portuguese Madeira.

However, in time grain production began to fall. To get past the ensuing crisis, Henry decided to order the planting of sugarcane (rare in Europe) and the introduction of Sicilian beets. Sugarcane production became a leading factor in the island's economy and increased the demand for labour. Genoese and Portuguese traders were attracted to the islands. Sugarcane cultivation and the sugar production industry developed until the 17th century.

Later sugar production moved on to Brazil, and elsewhere. And since the 17th century, Madeira's most important product has been its wine, Madeira wine was perhaps the most popular luxury beverage in the colonial Western Hemisphere during the 17th and 18th centuries.

From 1807 to 1814 Madeira was occupied by the British Empire. It was a friendly occupation and when the island was returned to Portugal the British did much to popularize Madeira wine.

After the death of King John VI of Portugal, his usurper son Miguel of Portugal seized power from the rightful heir, his niece Maria II, and proclaimed himself 'Absolute King', Madeira held out for the Queen under the governor José Travassos Valdez until Miguel sent an expeditionary force and the defense of the island was overwhelmed by crushing force. Valdez was forced to flee to England.

In 1921, the last Austro-Hungarian Emperor Charles I was deported to Madeira, after his second unsuccessful coup d'état in Hungary. He died there one year later and is buried in Monte near Fuchel.

On July 1, 1976, following the democratic revolution of 1974, Portugal granted political autonomy to Madeira. The region now has its own government and legislative assembly.

Facts on Madeira.

2009-01-01T22:51:00.006+01:00

This part of the blog is dedicated to facts on Madeira. I found the information from different sources. If you notice any mistakes, please contact me through my contact page or add it as a comment below, and I’ll check it and post your comment. Also if you can contribute to this section of the blog, by sending me the material do this via my contact tab. I would really like to see this section grow, so I really would appreciate any idea’s or contributions.

Use the menu bar at the top of the blog to get to diffrent subjects and the menu bar at the side for my story on madeira.