Madeira

Madeira confused me at first. It did not fit the categories I had prepared for it. It is subtropical but not tropical — no white sand beaches, no palm-fringed lagoons. It is mountainous but not alpine — the peaks are volcanic, lush, draped in laurel forest that predates the last ice age. It is Portuguese but not mainland Portuguese — the accent is different, the food is different, the light is different. Madeira is its own thing, and once I stopped comparing it to other places, it became one of my favourite islands in the Atlantic.

The levada walks are the reason most people come, and they deserve the reputation. Levadas are irrigation channels — narrow aqueducts built over centuries to carry water from the wet north to the drier south of the island — and the maintenance paths alongside them have become one of Europe’s great walking networks. The Levada do Caldeirão Verde is the classic: a path cut into the mountainside, threading through tunnels and past waterfalls, with the laurel forest — a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of the last surviving fragments of the forests that once covered southern Europe — closing in overhead. The light filters through the canopy in shafts, the air smells of damp earth and moss, and the only sound is water. I walked it in January and had the trail almost entirely to myself.

Funchal — the capital — is more charming than it has any right to be. The old town, with its painted doors project (every door on Rua de Santa Maria has been transformed into art), is a pleasant ramble of cobblestone streets and seafood restaurants. The Mercado dos Lavradores — the farmers’ market — is a feast of exotic fruit: passion fruit, custard apples, monstera deliciosa fruit, and the tiny bananas that grow on the island’s southern terraces. The Madeira wine lodges — Blandy’s has been in operation since 1811 — offer tastings of wines that were aged using the heat of the tropics, a process discovered by accident when barrels sent on long sea voyages returned tasting better than when they left.

Pico do Arieiro and Pico Ruivo — the two highest peaks — are connected by a mountain trail that is one of the most dramatic day hikes in Europe. The path traverses knife-edge ridges, passes through tunnels carved into volcanic rock, and on clear days the views extend to Porto Santo island, forty kilometres away. Go at dawn — the clouds are often below you, and watching the sun rise above a sea of white while the peaks glow orange is the kind of experience that justifies uncomfortable alarm clocks.

The food on Madeira orbits around two essentials: espetada (beef skewered on laurel branches and grilled over embers, served hanging from a hook above the table) and bolo do caco (a flat bread baked on basalt stone, split and filled with garlic butter). Both are simple, both are extraordinary, and both taste better eaten at a mountain restaurant after a morning on the levadas. The black scabbard fish — peixe-espada — is the island’s signature seafood, served with banana, which sounds dubious and works beautifully.

When to go: Year-round. Madeira’s subtropical climate means temperatures hover between 17 and 25 degrees in all seasons. The Flower Festival in April fills Funchal with floats and carpet displays. December and New Year bring one of the largest fireworks displays in the world, visible from cruise ships that crowd the harbour for the occasion.