The month of May in Madeira is no ordinary affair: from Thursday 2 to Sunday 26, the capital city of Funchal will host its annual Madeira Flower Festival, a lively celebration of Spring and new beginnings. Every year following Easter, Madeira’s floral beauty blossoms, making it a truly spectacular place to be.
Madeira Flower Festival
On the morning of Saturday 4 May, the Flower Festival will hold a Wall of Hope, where children gather in the Municipal Square to offer a variety of flowers and offer their well wishes to the world. The following day, a multicoloured parade of floats makes it way through the city, adorned with flowers typical of the Madeira islands. The sheer vibrant spectacle that sails through Funchal every year is a breathtaking sight, bringing with it a beautifully floral aroma that bathes the streets.
The flower exhibition is also not to be missed when it takes place in the Praça do Povo. Here, locals put their most beautiful flower arrangements on display and the best are awarded prizes by a panel of experts.
The Flower Festival takes place at this time as it is when Madeira’s subtropical climate welcomes the Spring blossom. As you can read more about in our Madeira area guide, the warm weather and idyllic scenery are two very good reasons why many flock to live here or invest in holiday homes.
As one of Portugal‘s two overseas regions, Madeira is made up of four islands, including one of the same name where the capital Funchal can be found. Thanks to its warm summers and mild winters nature is able to flourish, meaning that the annual Flower Festival is just one glimpse into Madeira’s rich botanic offering.
The Laurissilva Forest, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is another given its lush subtropical greenery that is a nowadays a global rarity. If you ask anyone that has come to live in Madeira, they’ll surely tell you that the natural diversity is something one never grows tired of.
Read more about living in Madeira in our area guide.
Hero picture by Colin Gregory via Flickr
