Madeira with children

The beautiful savage: Madeira

Lava beaches, high peaks, caves, dolphin watching and lush vegetation – Madeira has a lot to offer in a small space. And is also worth a visit for families and that in every season, because the climate is always pleasantly mild.

Sun, cloudless sky, bathing temperatures. That’s what you want on an island in the middle of the sea. Amazingly, Clara disagrees, “Well, the weather is not so nice,” she tells me on the first morning after our arrival in Madeira. “Then we can make trips without thinking that we would rather be by the pool.” I can only share this view of my daughter: Our holiday destination, which is an hour’s flight away from the Portuguese mainland in the Atlantic, is only 57 kilometers long and 22 Kilometers wide. But on this area it has so much to offer that it would be a shame to stay in the hotel – as nice as that in the case of Reid’s and Porto Mare.

As we learn in the Centro do vulcanismo de São Vicente in an exciting 3D movie and cave tour, this variety is due to a huge underwater eruption, which crumbled 20 million years ago craters above the sea level and spat out liquid rock mass. The wind, rain and waves have become so bad that up to 1862 meters high peaks, deep valleys, rugged cliffs and lava black beaches with many rocks, more pebbles and a little bit of dark sand are left. Because of the regular rainfall and average temperatures between 16 and 22 ° C, all this is covered by a vegetation carpet: a little less in the harsh north, because it is more exposed to the Atlantic storms and waves. In the more sheltered south, the more luxuriant, where, depending on the altitude, plants ranging from bananas, palm trees and beautiful strelitzia to rare laurel forests that have been UNESCO World Natural Heritage since 1999, to fragrant eucalyptus and maquis are proliferating. In the Funchal Botanical Garden, to which we float in a cable car, all this is united in one place as a well-ordered garden of Eden, on the rest of the island everywhere where the steep slopes were plundered because of the fertile soil gardens and fields. Especially when a guide from Mountain Expedition with a four-wheel jeep turns in serpentines to Pico do Arieiro, we are amazed.

Because first he brings us to a summit, which stands out spectacularly from a cotton cloud and is connected to two others by a tempting ridge path, which Clara and I would like to follow immediately like those hikers, their sporting intentions already on the plane to the robust shoes were recognizable. Then, just a few kilometers farther in Ribeira Frio, he brings us a second highlight that rightly bears the name “Balcões”: After a short walk along ancient levadas, which are part of a sophisticated irrigation canal system, we arrive at a vantage point that looks like one Balcony hovers over a deep green crater. It is quite quiet here except for the chirping of trusting finches and splashing distant waterfalls, which like many other places of the island foaming plunge into the depths. And so unearthly beautiful that Clara shoots one photo at the other – until the battery symbol flashes. “Do not worry!” I comfort her. “Try instead to memorize this image so you can retrieve it like a fairytale scene later.” With this proposal, she can make friends, all the more as our camera a day later reaches its limits again. Dolphins whiz in a morning trip with Rota dos Cetáceos but in droves around our dinghy around the flood.

As a photo or video, but the lightning fast favorite animals of my daughter can only get so hard that we prefer to focus on watching: While oblique sun rays silvery the surface like oil shine, dive or jump, before, behind and next to us again and again magnificent specimens from the wet – several times even a mother with calf. “The sea here is very deep, but still warm and rich in fish because of the nearby Gulf Stream – ideal conditions for dolphins and whales, which have been protected here since 1986,” explains the biologist on board when we have to turn off after half an hour to Not to stress the animals unnecessarily and to go to another school of dolphins, who spied outlookers ashore and reported by radio. After such intense impressions, our energy is only enough for a little stroll through Funchal, where we look at the Santa Clara Monastery, which is rather inconspicuous on the outside but richly decorated with azulejo tiles. And make us at the multimedia Madeira Story Center on the past of the island, which was discovered in 1419 by Portuguese sailors.

Afterwards a special kind of refreshment awaits us, for which we have to make ourselves chic: Afternoon Tea at Reid’s. Already from the ship we had seen the pink building perched on a rock high above the harbor. With appetizing sandwiches, scones and tartlets on fine porcelain, we are now able to experience the traditional house, which opened in 1891, up close and feel instantly transported to times when celebrities such as Winston Churchill were vacationing here. At first, Clara is a bit intimidated by so much time-honored elegance, but gets used to the five-star luxury that we’ve been enjoying for the last two days: from breakfast, to an opulent buffet and so on. You will be spoiled for choice between any kind of exotic fruit and egg preparations, right down to the well-tempered swimming pools at the foot of the park-like garden. After all, we have finally found an opportunity to swim in spite of all the undertakings, because in Madeira, in addition to the landscape, the weather is also extremely varied: very solid in Reid`s.

In various indoor and outdoor pools, which share the houses, which are in the hotel district of Funchal to the Porto Bay Group, in a heavenly garden. And adventurous in Porto Moniz: while down in the sea meter-high crushers are bubbling around rocks, you dabble a few meters high up undisturbed in lava pools – another natural wonder of many.

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