Category: gossip and chit-chat

Like every summer, from a distance, we follow the Madeiran news about bush fires. There are many eucalyptus trees on the island, and the leaves they drop are easy fuel for any spark dropped, accidentally or on purpose. We have had our share of bush fires in Fajã da Ovelha, and though some of them…

I do realise this is a bit of a scary header. But, rest assured, you have seldom read a more reassuring article on scary animals. Even though Madeira is a subtropical island, where all kinds of nasty critters would thrive because of the climate, there are no poisonous or otherwise dangerous animals in Madeira. For…

One of Madeiras most stunning areas is the Fanal forest high up on the North side of the island. The Latin name of the gnarled trees in the Fanal forest is Ocotea Foetens. It is one of the many Laurel species and some of them are 600 years old. Unesco World Heritage The Fanal forest…

A great deal has already been written about Corona and the measures that go with it, and about life on Madeira in a pandemic. I, too, have wasted more words than is good for us. But after a year and a half of the pandemic, we can safely say that life in Madeira has remained…

In spite of the fact that we were assured by the secretary of our local ‘Centro de Saúde’, and in spite of the fact that the national Portuguese government decreed that anyone who is in Portuguese territory, for whatever reason, is entitled to get the covid jab, we were pleasantly surprised by the phone call…

update December 30, 2020 on the rules for watching the fireworks in Funchal. If you have already read the rest of the article, you can jump to the update section here. Last week Wednesday, November 25th, the regional government of Madeira has issued extra covid measures for the coming weeks. The Christmas covid rules come…

Many have stopped to take pictures during their holidays. They make videos that create a vivid image of their destination. We have always published them when we came across them, usually with reference to the source. They gradually got too scattered on the website, so I decided to collect them here on one single page.…

As expected, last night the state of emergency was declared in Portugal, including the autonomous regions of Madeira and Açores. Today, we really were expecting heavy measures and further restrictions, but fortunately, for now, there haven’t been any that weren’t already in place. Compulsory quarantine for people disembarking from abroad, including the Portuguese mainland, stays…

The last two days were somewhat scary. Criminals have – for the umpteenth time – started forest fires in Madeira. Little can be said about the motives. But angry tongues do say that there are companies on Madeira that make a lot of money by repairing damage caused by fire. And when they say to…