The island of Madeira is thirteen miles (21km) wide and thirty-five miles (56km) long and has no beaches - but it does have lush botanical landscapes and rich volcanic earth, and its colourful masses of orchids, bougainvillea, frangipani, wisteria and geraniums fill the air with fragrance. Fruit and herbs grow in profusion on the hillsides and in ravines, and the mountain slopes are terraced with orchards and vineyards.
The Portuguese island of Madeira is situated more than 600 miles (966km) south west of Lisbon, a mere speck in the vast Atlantic Ocean. Madeira, along with its sister island of Porto Santo, is the summit of an undersea mountain, rearing up with craggy cliffs from the warm blue Gulf Stream waters in one of the deepest parts of the Atlantic. It features one of the world's highest ocean cliffs, which soars 1,933 feet (589m) above the sea and presented a forbidding sight to the ancient Portuguese mariners who first discovered the island archipelago in the 15th century.
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