Rua de Santa Maria
The open gallery as unbroken cafés.
Diego Delso — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Bengt Nyman — CC BY 2.0 · Jan Helebrant — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Jan Helebrant — CC BY-SA 2.0
A rare equation: a safe European island in eternal spring (no August scorch, no January frost), green mountain-and-waterfall nature like a Switzerland over an ocean, growing direct flights and none of the Paris-London crush — with Portuguese-warm hospitality. Gulf winter families found in it a nobler Canaries — the growth felt year on year.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet — be the first.
Funchal's old town is Madeira's beating heart: the Zona Velha fishermen's quarter art rescued — the Painted Doors project (2011) turned Rua de Santa Maria into an open gallery: two hundred doors as canvases by the island's artists, making the quarter the Atlantic's loveliest café run. Its edges abbreviate the island: yellow São Tiago fort on its sea, the Monte cable car station at its gate, the Socorro church square — and the promenade walks you to the pillar marina where every mooring sailor painted his ship's name (a coloured decades-old rite). Funchal's climate is eternal spring (16-26°C the year round), making it the Gulf's rising Atlantic winter haven — and the quarter is base of everything: the cable car lifts you to Monte from it, the market is two steps, the harbour runs the dolphin boats. Evening is its feast: poncha da cana pressed before you and fish coal-grilled down a whole street.
The open gallery as unbroken cafés.
The yellow on the sea rock.
Every mooring ship painted its name.
Zona Velha, 9060 Funchal