On our first day, we watched, from the bed, a curtain swaying in the breeze. That was all. It was a semi-transparent, white veil of fantasy that moved between us and the view. Through the curtain, we could see the balcony, and from the balcony, through the flower garden, out to the sea. The curtain fluttered like a movie scene, with proud palm trees behind it, the blue of the sky, and a horizon so vast and straight, like we had never seen before. This is how I imagine paradise. Eternity. A silently waving curtain, moved by a breeze that dries you after you’ve freed yourself from a certain feeling. You freshen up, apply lotion, look tanned, and sit on the heavenly terrace of Reid’s Palace Hotel.
The Reid’s is a pink palace that politely fits into the landscape and enhances it, rather than defacing it. The hotel was carved into the rocks and, from the road, is impressively unimpressive for a 19th-century Grand Hotel. Guests used to arrive by ship and the dirt road leading to the hotel was only meant for deliveries by donkey. At night, the other dreadful hotels disappear from view and become stars shining up the mountain until the real ones continue further up. The hotel’s terrace then has something tropical, exotic yet not tropical or exotic, it is colonial, perhaps perfected.
Once in a lifetime, you must sit on this terrace one afternoon. Just not for Afternoon Tea, from half past three to half past four. That’s an hour when you can’t smoke, have to drink tea, and behave strangely. Every other hour on this terrace is blissful, and you will carry them with you from then on, no matter where you sit. You will remember how, after a day spent doing or not doing anything, without stress, without appointments, you sat on this terrace and let yourself be carried away by what is and will be, waiting for your girlfriend with an aperitif, who naturally takes a bit longer to freshen up. It’s a wonderful feeling to wait with an aperitif for someone you love. You see the ships coming towards you, jot something down, learn from Duarte and Capela, the hotel bartenders, about the best restaurants, the freshest fish, and the latest gossip.
Madeira was always just a drink and a place I thought I’d want to visit when I was 60. An island somewhere in the sea, nothing more, and a fortified wine that couldn’t be as good as Port because it wasn’t as popular in Portugal. But Madeira is more worldly, drank by kings and tsars. It’s said that Madeira was toasted at the signing of the American Declaration of Independence. Back then, the wine was shipped twice across the equator before it was consumed. A bottle can age for a hundred years.
Ah, Madeira. At the height of the Portuguese pandemic, everyone flew here because nothing was going on with COVID-19, until everyone flew here, and then you couldn’t come here anymore. The island markets itself as having an eternal spring and invites celebrities to help transform its image from an Atlantic retirement home to a dynamic island paradise. It’s only a matter of time before digital nomads start asking for Wi-Fi. We couldn’t wait until I was 60.
We arrived at the flower island as a couple in love on the search for our Portuguese Riviera. Everything is very green and very blue and very beautiful, and the beauty is that nothing here is the most beautiful, the greatest, or the best. There are no Eiffel Towers, St. Peter’s Domes, or Colosseums. The island doesn’t need attractions, it doesn’t need superlatives. It just is, and that’s simply beautiful. You only need to drink light wines, pick flowers, carry the attractions within yourself. No significant art collections that we had heard of. The Madeirans try to sell glass balconies hanging over cliffs, steep cable cars, or wicker sled taxis as major highlights. Stay calm, breathe. You can, with a clear conscience, lie on the rocks by the sea, go for a swim, and eat colourful fruits while lying down.
Once you get used to the colors and fruits added to every dish, everything is poetry. You start with Lapas, Bolo do Caco, and a light white wine. The Madeiran table wines take some time to get used to, but a white Barbusano goes very well with it. For the main course, you share espetadas or peixe espada preto, or both, and drink something nice and red. Then coffee and a small Poncha. The Madeirans believe Poncha cures everything, protects against disease, and heals broken hearts. Some even drink it before noon.
At some point, that wasn’t enough for us anymore. That’s human nature. On the way back, we argued. She felt sick from all the curves and said I should drive the curves straighter. You always see it coming, know the signs, wonder how it’s possible, but can’t escape and are pulled into the abyss by an invisible force. Vacation argument. Yes. Thank God, our bed was big enough that we didn’t have to touch each other that night. You never waste your time as long as you spend it honestly together, but when you’re angry at each other without saying anything, and she eats the last piece of melon without asking, you want to either collapse or throw yourself into the sea. You talk to each other and think you understand each other, but you only understand your own feelings, which you project onto the other, but let’s leave that. Everyone knows how a vacation argument works when everything around you is good and innocently blooming. The only difference: a Portuguese woman doesn’t look for solutions behind her emotions and complaints. The German argues resolution-oriented. Usually, a good meal and wine are enough to make everything okay again. But this argument went beyond breakfast. By lunch, we had an appointment with a guide who wanted to show us “The Real Madeira.” He would sort things out.
We often came back to the island because we loved its variety of views. You experience all four seasons in a day and yet still feel that everything is in spring. The lush and soothing green is good for the soul, especially for those from the city. You start from a valley, which looks like the Alps, and you end up in a fishing village that makes you forget you are in Europe. In the highlands you feel cold, but you’re soon drenched in sweat on a steep cliff overlooking the Atlantic, which is calm as a lake. There are places in the world where nothing changes and where people experience eternal summer or eternal winter. But to experience the diverse faces of a place within a single day is something extraordinary. It makes you aware of the present moment, the fleeting nature of time, and the beauty in impermanence.
We left a lot of ourselves in the view from that terrace. The afternoons, the colorful cocktails, speechless meals. Duarte and Capela said it’s a pity we’re leaving already. We didn’t walk a single Levada, but we had found ourselves on that terrace, watched a curtain blow, and drank natural wine with an old lady on the north side. We wanted to see the east side before departure. To the east, the island narrows, and the north and south sides meet. You can stand in the middle and look both ways and understand how tourists still die here. On one side, the cliffs drop a hundred meters. Otherwise, it is beautiful when the last rays of the day combine with a feeling of farewell, and you leave Madeira with the desire to return, to see more, to quench the longing. Even the airport procedures can’t change that, they are too short.
