Words & Photogrpahs by James Loveday

After eight months of lockdown, barely leaving north London, my girlfriend and I were desperate to get away and enjoy some winter sun. We’d thought about visiting and photographing Madeira before - as I’m a huge fan of the wine it gives its name to - but it wasn’t until it became one of the few places accepting UK visitors that we decided to pack our things, take our Covid tests and get on the plane. 

Madeira is an archipelago of four sub-tropical volcanic islands dropped in the Atlantic Ocean a few hundred miles off the Moroccan coast. The uninhabited islands were discovered by Portuguese sailors in 1419 and they are still part of Portugal today.

As you circle the island before landing you see in its centre - mighty peaks, draped in cloud, towering above the cliffs and shores. But these islands are not barren lumps of rock, they are fertile, verdant oases in the desert of the sea. The volcanic soils provide rich nutrients, which allow islanders to grow a staggering array of fruits, vegetables and flowers. 

We visited Faja dos Padres, just west of the capital Funchal and accessible only via a cable car. This small farm, guest house and restaurant is found at the base of a huge cliff and boasts not only high quality ancient grape vines but bananas, mangoes, avocados, papayas, passion fruit and sugar cane.

As we watched the waves crash against the dark grey stones of the beach it wasn’t difficult to imagine the solitude of those early settlers who positioned themselves in such a lonely place to avoid attacks from both land and sea. If ever I was to be marooned myself, I could think of plenty of worse places to be. 

Produce such as that from Faja dos Padres often ends up in Funchal’s Mercado dos Lavradores where the array of fruits and vegetables - all grown on the island - is astounding. There are five types of banana, probably ten different passion fruits, dozens of chillies , custard apples and (my particular favourite) the rare and decadent fruit of the Monstera Deliciosa - a long tubular fruit you can pick apart when ripe to get to the juicy cubes of flesh inside. 

When it comes to the wine, Madeira’s offerings are no less impressive. I visited several producers, all with a storied history and decades, or centuries, of experience. Madeira is made from a selection of different grapes and comes in many styles - from a drier aperitif to a super sweet after dinner tipple - but all are united by their fortification. The addition of grape spirit stops the fermentation and brings the alcohol up to about 20 percent, which allows them to be seriously aged. The basic stuff has five years in barrel, but bottles with at least 10, 15 or 20 years behind them are pretty standard and brilliantly affordable. Whilst being shown the Barbeito winery my generous host gave me not only a glass of their 50 year old offering but a taste of something wonderful from his own collection, a heady and totally stunning glass of wine, bottled in 1856. 

So much sugarcane is grown in Madeira that they make excellent rum by the barrel-load and still have plenty of molasses leftover for another delicacy, their ‘honey’ cake. It is a deep dark brown, sticky and adorned with spices and nuts. Another sweet treat we enjoyed was at the historic Reid’s Palace Hotel. Built in the days of the British Empire when wars and ‘interests’ led us to the island. It is an elegant sanctuary, surrounded by extensive gardens with flowers from across the globe. As a stop off on the way to both Africa and South America, the plants, flowers and fruits of the world came to Madeira and many of them stayed. We admired the blooms while enjoying afternoon tea on the Reid’s terrace. Views of palm trees and the azure sea, with the mountains rising behind them, were the perfect backdrop to the wonderful delicacies on offer. For an hour or two I might just have been a British diplomat at the turn of the century.  

Funchal is a wonderful place to be based. There’s an abundance of grand old forts, convents and churches to lend gravitas, while the architectural detail on the older streets was exquisite too, with just the right amount of decay. Miradouros provide frequent waypoints when walking up the hills of the town and they remind one to stop, take a breath and enjoy the view, as the lizards skit about on the sunny rocks beside you. 

Up and away from the sea and the people below, Madeira’s volcanic mountains reveal another side to the island; an older, more mysterious one. The Laurisilva forests are thought to have covered the whole island before humans chanced upon it, and this forest had previously covered all of Europe until the last ice age 10,000 years ago - it still retains a primeval quality even now. The forests of laurel trees and ancient bracken are fed by the rain and humidity, brought by the clouds they sit in for much of the time. Driving upwards we gradually immersed ourselves first in forest then in mist, before we burst out over the top and back into sunlight. All this water eventually seeks a path back down to the sea and you are never far from a river, canal or waterfall in Madeira. 

One particularly isolated parish high in the forests is Curral das Freiras or ‘Nun’s Valley’, where locals have built their lives around the chestnut tree and its harvest. We visited in late autumn and the chestnuts were in abundance. They will make you chestnut soup, chestnut salad, chestnut pies and chestnut cakes, all washed down with chestnut liquor, of course. As we sat on a roof deck enjoying this forest bounty we watched the clouds as they drifted through the surrounding peaks and listen to the sonorous chimes of the bell tower ring out and echo across the valley.

There’s a whole other world in Madeira above the clouds. We experienced the terrifying mountain passes with sheer drops below, astonishing views across the valleys and, when the sky cleared, back down to the distant ocean. Hiking across the steep valleys was hard work at times but to experience the natural world like that was something very special. 

We first visited Madeira in our Portugal magazine, which you can order here.