Madeira ‘is a garden’, or so the most beautiful of compliments goes. Or you can call the island the ‘pearl of the Atlantic’ and perhaps for the same reasons: it seems to be painted in green but packed with all the colors of Nature thanks to human ingenuity, the skill of changing hills and prairies, mountains and cliffs and making them all shine with tones of rainbow.
The ‘green experiment’ can start with the ‘indigenous forest’, World Natural Heritage of Unesco, or even before you leave the hotel whenever you choose the ‘quintas’ of Madeira, gorgeous aristocratic-like houses with a garden of their own and the sea for a view. Because everywhere you look or stand this Atlantic pearl has terraces and viewpoints that are stunning and cannot be missed. And even when you go on the adventure of the ‘levadas’, those ways that human hand sharped across mountains of green, creeks and waterfalls, you know you came to the right island.
It’s an Island, yes, so any place has a view. But that could make the visitor forget the majesty of the gardens of Madeira, those public or the private ones always welcoming the tourist. The Botanical Garden (Quinta do Bom Sucesso), the Monte Palace Tropical Garden, the one of Santa Luzia or the Quinta das Cruzes, among dozens of large or small gardens that, for some reason, are always planted longing for a view of the Atlantic
The ‘pearl of the Atlantic’ is in fact made of green, cherished among the ocean blue. And her gardens give Madeira all the colors of the world.
