While searching for the start of our Boaventura hike, we drove through the small village centre. Much to our surprise, the streets where filled with people decorating the town with flowers and flower garlands. DECORATED STREETS In Madeira, a festival means: flowers, thousands of them! People use fresh flowers to make flower carpets for the streets. These carpets can be hundreds of meters long, decorating several streets and squares....
During our first visit to Madeira, our hotel served pastel de nata every other day at breakfast. It was love at first taste! After my first pastel de nata, my trip to the breakfast buffet was not complete without grabbing one, or two of these pastries. In my defense: they served mini pastel de nata. Unfortunately we were never again so lucky to have pastel de nata at...
Bolo do caco: typical Madeiran food! You will find bolo do caco in practically all restaurants on Madeira and at many street food stands. SO WHAT IS IT, BOLO DO CACO? It is a Madeiran flat bread. The bread, bolo, is cooked on a caco: a hot basalt stone, thus the name. This bread is served in many delicious ways. Essential is homemade garlic butter: bolo do caco and garlic butter are best...
When we first visited Madeira, we already encountered a lot of these: stores selling products made entirely out of cork. A few years later, it seems more and more of these stores are popping up around Madeira. Apparently, cork products sell! To be honest, if you would have asked my opinion about this material a few years ago, I would have said I found it a bit...
If you’re planning a trip to this beautiful place, surely you must be curious about the island. So here’s a speed date with Madeira, offering information about the main attractions, excursions, nature, walks, climate and weather. ABOUT MADEIRA Madeira is located in the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 1000 km from the Portuguese main land. The island is part of the Madeira Islands group, consisting of Madeira, Porto Santo and Desertas...
It is Rio de Janeiro’s best-known attraction: the statue of Christ the Redeemer. The world famous Christ statue is visited by more than a million (!) people each year. This statue is enormous: with its 30m height, it’s one of the largest Christ statues in the world. At this very moment, during the Rio Olympics, it’s also featured in a lot of news footage concerning the Olympics....
I am so very sad to hear that Madeira is on fire…..again. The last few years, there have been several large fires on Madeira. In 2010, 2012, 2013 and now again, in 2016. During the 2010 fire, a large section of Funchal National Park was destroyed. The consequences of that fire are visible to this day. This current fire is again very large. Madeira’s authorities even feared for...
Every time we visit Madeira I will look forward to seeing some local festivities somewhere on the island. Because Madeira decorations are the best! Since Madeira is quite big on festivities, I will often see the decorations I love somewhere. Lucky me. Most of the villages have their own religious celebrations. Besides the local festivities there are many national events in which the people of Madeira will...
