The Canary Islands were first inhabited by the Guanches people, from about 600 BCE (the best guess I can find from various sources).  Genetically, culturally and linguistically linked to the Berber tribes of North Africa, these people populated many of the islands, developing distinct identities due to their isolation.  There are few traces left of…

Lava (or is it tuft? or basalt?) is hard to escape on Tenerife.  The coastline is incredibly rocky, the cliffs are dark and the beaches are covered in black pumice pebbles. Moving Westward from the hotel, the first largish town is Garachico, a charming place that buzzes with tourists but has managed to keep a…

The Canary Islands lie further south than Madeira and are also slightly closer to the coast of Africa. Close enough that the more easterly islands have issues with small boat immigrants (funnily enough drifting up from Senegal, which is further south).  Another interesting factoid is that there is, apparently, a submarine graveyard for the home-made…

Having grown up in a country abundantly supplied with tropical fruit, I am a sucker for a breakfast spread that includes good examples of fruits not readily available at home. Yes, you can buy mango in Sainsburys, but is it really tasty mango? Is it the best example of mango? No. And don’t get me…

With over 800 km of levadas, most of which can be followed on foot, walking is a big deal in Madeira. You could probably traverse the whole island following the levadas, if you wanted to. We tried several levada walks and one non-levada one. The south-eastern corner of Madeira, the Ponta da São Lorenço, is…

The Madeira archipelago (to use its formal name) lies off the coast of Morocco. This section of a map shows its relationship to the other islands off of Africa. The Azores are also Portuguese, Cabo Verde was Portuguese (or at least, they speak Portuguese there) and the Canaries are Spanish. All of these islands served…

After picking up a car at the airport (named after Madeira’s most famous son, Cristiano Renaldo, with a statue, a museum and a hotel in tribute to him in Funchal), we headed towards Paul do Mar on the southwest coast. This small village is a surfing hot spot and considered charming with ‘pretty little streets’.…

Funchal is known for its gardens, which are the result of the balmy climate and rainfall. Everything seems to grow here, from tropical orchids to sequoia pines. There are several gardens to visit, two were all we could manage. We started with the Botanical gardens, which are above the city on the easterly side and…

Funchal is larger than you think it should be, with buildings of various kinds running down the sides of steep gullies to the sea. There are several sections: the oldest bit, to the east; a more recent ‘old’ bit, to the west; lots and lots of very new construction around, in between and beyond these…

Britain in January and February is cold, gloomy, damp – generally fairly miserable. The days are still short, it’s either fairly cold and wet (and muddy) or bitingly cold and slippery everywhere. Hardy accurately described early January in his poem The Darkling Thrush. I won’t try to improve on his words. We wanted winter sun,…