Landscapes of Madeira by John Underwood, Pat Underwood   Winner of the Thomas Cook Travel Guide Award, this guide to Madeira offers over 100 different walks, including five new routes.   More information and prices from: Amazon.co.uk - British pounds Amazon.com - US dollars Amazon.ca - Canadian dollars Amazon.de - Euros Amazon.fr - Euros 35 Madeira Walks by David Brawn, Ros Brawn   35 Madeira Walks provides a wide range of walking routes from easy strolls up to challenging ascents, that will appeal to a wide range of walking abilities.   More information and prices from: Amazon.co.uk - British pounds Amazon.de - Euros Amazon.fr - Euros

Funchal is the capital of Madeira, an autonomous province of Portugal located in the Atlantic Ocean.

Lady Isabel Burton (The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton: The True Story of Her Life ) gave an enchanting description of her first sight of Madeira in 1863:

"We dropped our anchor a quarter of a mile from the town of Funchal. We rose at six, had a cup of coffee, packed up our water-proof bags, and went on deck to get a first glimpse of Madeira. A glorious sight presented itself, producing a magical effect upon the cold, wet, dirty, sea-sick passenger who had emerged from his atrocious native climate but ten days before. Picture to yourself a deep blue sky, delicately tinted at the horizon, not a cloud to be seen, the ocean as blue as the Mediterranean. There was a warm sun, and a soft and sweet-smelling breeze from the land, as of aromatic herbs. Arising out of the bosom of the ocean in splendour, a quarter of a mile off, but looking infinitely less distant, were dark mountain masses with fantastic peaks and wild, rugged sides, sharply defined against the sky and streaked with snow, making them resemble the fanciful castles and peaks we can imagine in the clouds. The coast to the sea is thick with brilliant vegetation; dark soil- basalt and red tufa are its colours - with the variegated green of fir, chestnut, dark pine forests, and the gaudy sugar-cane. Here and there a belt of firs runs up a mountain, winding like a serpent, and is its only ornament. Wild geraniums, and other flowers which only grow in a hot house in England, and badly too, are in wild luxuriance here."

"The island appears to be dotted everywhere with churches, villas, and hamlets - little gardens and patches of trees intermingled with them. There are three immense ravines, deep and dark; and these with all the pleasant additions of birds, butterflies, and flowers of every sort and colour, a picturesque, good-humoured peasantry busy on the beach, and a little fleet of fishing-boats, with their large white lagoon sails, like big white butterflies on the blue water. Most of the capes are immense precipices of rock."

Today, Funchal is a bustling city of 160,000 people with an excessive amount of traffic. The main roads can be busy but the town has many quiet areas and traffic can be fairly easily avoided

Some of the best views of Funchal can be observed from the cable car that takes visitors from the seafront to the mountain village of Monte. The cable cars run over Funchal's rooftops up the steep slope of the mountain. You can walk, bus or tobbogan back to town.

More about Madeira:

Madeira - An Introduction

Madeira - History

Hotels in Funchal, Madeira

More books on the history of Madeira can be found at: Abebooks.com

Details and prices of some Madeira hotels:
Madeira - Holidays4Less

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