Madeira Travel Guide
Madeira is a sub–tropical archipelago located in the Atlantic Ocean and an autonomous region of Portugal. The archipelago is made up of two populated islands, Madeira and Porto Santo, and two groups of unpopulated islands called the Desertas and Selvagens Islands. It is part of the European Union ultraperifric area.
The archipelago of Madeira is located 520 km (323.11 mi) from the African coast and 1,000 km (621.37 mi) from the European continent. The archipelago itself is a series of oceanic volcanic islands that date back to the Miocene (about 20 million years ago), and constructed from a hotspot in the Earth's crust of the African Tectonic Plate. Madeira, and the smaller Desertas Islands, are the youngest of these islands (dating from 4.6 to 0.7 million years), while Porto Santo, the smaller of the main islands, is the oldest (approximately 14 million years).
When to visit
Madeira Islands, known worldwide as the Islands of eternal spring, are just a short trip from Europe (more or less 4 hours from UK), to a destination where you can combine holidays on the beach, in the mountains or in the city and offers a mild climate throughout the entire year. Discovered early in the 15th century by the Portuguese navigators Joo Gonalves Zarco, Tristo Vaz Teixeira and Bartolomeu Perestrelo, Madeira is an autonomous region of Portugal.
Things to do
Today, Madeira is a popular year–round resort for tourists of all ages, being visited every year by about one million tourists, noted for its Madeira wine, flowers, landscapes and embroidery artisans, as well for its annual New Years celebrations that feature the largest fireworks show in the world. Its constant mild climate (temperatures between 20 and 27C) keeps the spring on Madeira all year round. The levadas, an ingenious system of stone– and concrete–lined watercourses distributing water from the rainy north to the dry south, help flowers and crops flourish all year. That's why this island is called the Garden in the Atlantic. The maintenance pathways for these water canals provide wonderful level trails for hiking in the mountains (up to 1861m) and through the tremendous landscape.
