Madeira is marvellous

Call me strange, but hotels aren’t usually my idea of holiday fun.

Fighting for space around a crowded pool doesn’t excite, the clutter of people at meal times can seem like a glorified canteen queue and who can relax on a sunbed when you’re busy holding your tummy in?

No I’m generally a self-catering cottage kinda gal. Nature all around, breakfast when you feel like it, privacy while sunbathing and no rules. But after a week at the Hotel Quinta da Casa Branca on Madeira, I’m ready to make an exception. This hotel is a little oasis in the middle of mountainous Madeira’s bustling capital Funchal. In fact, it’s like being on holiday inside a natural Botanic Gardens without the glass but with delicious food and five-star comfort on tap.

The Quinta was once a plantation with vines and banana trees, owned by a family whose British ancestor began the Madeira wine trade in the 18th century. Fifteen years ago, John Leacock’s descendants embraced innovation themselves, boldly building a small hotel with a very modern design among the flowers, shrubs and trees. Traditional Portuguese design is dark, heavy and enclosed to offer respite from the scorching sun. The Quinta’s terrace and reception area, however, is a large cube of glass and steel offering spectacular views to the ocean and hills. Walnut wood and Sanderson flower-print wallpaper make bedrooms and restaurants feel luxurious but not freezingly posh and each room opens directly on to the gardens.

Unlike the larger waterfront hotels the Quinta has only 43 bedrooms, which gives a feeling of calm, intimacy and space. There’s a heated outdoor swimming pool, gym and spa, restaurant, bar, free wifi and a babysitting service. I really enjoyed the free yoga class on the lawn beside a row of heavily-scented jasmine bushes with just a couple of other forty-something guests.

Amazingly, given the tranquillity within the Quinta’s walls, the busy Lido restaurant area is just outside and, once you master the bus timetable and travelcards sold at machines,the delights of Funchal’s newly-restored Old Town are just five minutes bus-ride away.

Many folk walk into town but we saved our energy for levada walks accessed by bus from the city centre. These ancient irrigation channels all 1,300 miles of them criss-cross the island, perfect for walks ranging from an easy hour to an epic week-long hike.

Madeira isn’t large (35 miles long and 13 miles wide), but there’s plenty to see with round-the-island bus tours, fishermen’s villages and the institution of afternoon tea at Reid’s Hotel, where Churchill once holidayed.

There is also a marvellous cable car up to the Botanic Gardens at Monte, returning downhill, if you’re feeling brave, on toboggans steered over polished cobbles by attendants using their boots as brakes.

Madeira is basically one huge range of volcanic mountains with eight peaks taller than Ben Nevis and roads winding up steep gorges, flanked by houses almost to the top.

We didn’t hire a car, partly because some routes are so eye-wateringly steep but mostly because the constant banter between passengers and hard-working drivers provides free entertainment. Portuguese-speaking passengers stopped us leaving prematurely on a bus spiralling upwards to the highest levada walk where vivid pink, blue and purple hydrangea grow wild.

In other tourist destinations, visitors are often viewed as an irritant. Not on Madeira.

Amateur gardeners will be amazed to see delicate potted plants from back home transformed into healthy, gigantic bushes and trees.

The Quinta da Casa Branca is surrounded by camphor, floss silk and yellow trumpet trees. A small grove has rubber, banana, olive and mango trees, and a spectacular border of bird of paradise plants was flowering when we arrived in early March.

Clever planting means guests can observe each stage of butterfly gestation as an egg becomes a caterpillar, then a pupa and finally an adult butterfly.

Of course, you don’t get such luxuriant greenery and wildlife without a lot of effort and a bit of rain.

Unlike the Canary Islands, its main competitors, Madeira can’t guarantee a dry winter. But showers are short-lived and warm.

We took a two-hour ferry to the beach-ringed neighbouring island of Porto Santo as dry, sandy, quiet and relatively flat as Madeira is mountainous, populous and largely beach-free.

We hired bikes and had a fabulous day. Locals come for water sports, and the golf course is popular for a day trip too.

Madeira used to be a resort for the blue-rinse brigade.

No more. Bring a wee day rucksack and decent walking shoes. A sense of natural wonder won’t go amiss either.

Quinta da Casa Branca £834 per room two sharing without flights in Feb/March.

Thomson two direct flights on Mondays from Glasgow to Funchal, £248 pp in March.

Porto Santo Line cruise from Funchal £37 pp.

Madeira cable car £11 return.

Porto Santo bike hire www.autoacessorioscolombo.com.