Skip to main content
Category

Our Islands

Our Islands

Don’t miss the museum’s open day

By Our Islands 1.778 Comments

Next Friday, September 22nd, all routes in Madeira will lead to Praça Colombo, in the Funchal city centre. At the “Cidade do Açucar” (City of Sugar) museum the highlights will be on culture and heritage, with the European journeys dedicated to these themes taking place there.

Heritage and nature is this year’s theme, with the aim being highlighting the relationship between people, communities, places and their history, showing how heritage and nature keep crossing in their different expressions, urban or rural, and to the need to preserve and invest on this relationship.

Starting at 10h, there are games for the youngest. For the elder there’s a conference (starting at 15h), with the day ending with the showing of the film “A Rota do Contrabando” (The Smuggler’s Route), by Eduardo Costa, starting at 18h.

Across the city, the doors are open (free admittance) at the Museu Henrique and Francisco Franco, with guided visits at 10h and 15h.

Let the new season begin!

By Our Islands 54 Comments

The new artistic season has just been opened in the city theatre. There’s theatre, music, dancing, cinema, literary festivals, congresses, multiple items that will generate a lot of visitors to this Madeiran venue in the next coming months.

The programme was unveiled this last Friday (September 8th), with mayor Paulo Cafofo making a point of being present at the moment when the curtain is again raised on the stage where, until July, hundreds of artists will find their home away from home.

It was actually in this way that Sandra Nóbrega, the director of the Theatre, referred to the venue, where some fifty workers work every day to make it “the” venue for art in Madeira.

Proud of the numbers, Paulo Cafofo remembered the almost fifty thousand people that occupied the seats of the Theatre last year, and wished for an even more successful season this time round.

Book sharing at the park

By Our Islands 31 Comments

“When youth are given the opportunity to take an active role, they will do it. They will intervene, they will give their opinion, and they will generate ideas”. This is how Paullo Cafofo, mayor of Funchal, explained the putting into effect the decision of the Youth Council assembly to create a book sharing scheme, built into one of the former bird cages in the Santa catarina park, in Funchal.

The idea is to create a forum of cultural sharing, where one can get a book leaving another in return, in a pleasant environment like the Santa Catarina park.

The place where it was set up is a space that was at one time a bird cage, had been in use as a shed, and was now remodeled to serve culture and the promotion of reading.

Curtain rises again in the Theatre

By Our Islands 3.553 Comments

For those who already miss it, the Teatro is again to start a new artistic season.

The programme is to be presented this coming Friday 8th, at midday, at the Theatre itself. The Theatre’s agenda has been quite full – and proving it is the difficulty of booking new events – but the promise is that this is an agenda which will attract all types of audiences, even those who would not normally attend.

The season will range from theatre (including the EUNICE network events -, dancing, music, meetings, conferences, festivals and an artistic residency.

It’s Funchal day!

By Our Islands One Comment

Broken by the rivers that bring the water, in a frantic dance, from the mountains all the way to the sea, the city of Funchal completes 509 years today. With – some – less fortunate stories in between, a few lwaving scars for generations, the city has, through the years, been growing and seeking out new publics, offering added attractions to all that visit it, but also to all the permanently reside here.

Today is the day in which we celebrate Funchal. The most beautiful city in the world, for some, the most charming slope to see from the sea, according to others.

The Funchal of the museums, culture, environment and tourism offers, but also its terraces and its people, is our, and we have to take care and nurture it, to leave an even better city for those that succeed us.

Congratulations Funchal!

Cry of alert in Porto Santo

By Our Islands 577 Comments

Two days of debating and first class briefings gave the participants in the 12th Porto Santo Environmental Symposium a conclusion, again: one has to intervene.

Under the theme “Sustainable Tourism for Development” the symposium which was, once again, of interest for tens of people, was again organized by the environmental division of Porto Santo council. The meeting was of interest for natives and visitors, and once again left warnings of the need to change habits and policies so that one can – still – find a safe path for the destination most sought out by Madeirans.

The tourism promotion of Porto Santo, tourism segments like bird watching (growing) and special attention to be had in terms of the preservation of nature and importance and the meaning of cultural heritage were some of the themes handled by the symposium, which was moderated by “Madeira In & Out, and which was made out of a theoretical background followed by visits to various spots in Porto Santo.

Porto Santo, “holly harbour”

By Our Islands 4.629 Comments

The invasion of the big weekend is barely noticeable in the quietness of the Porto Santo morning. The town, still half asleep, spreads itself under the August sun, that is bound to remain for the whole weekend.

Those who chose the holiday to come to the smaller island were lucky – luckier than those who spent dome days here last week.

The quietness of the island is well known, and there is no rush, no stress, and no traffic lights.

Before noon, the rush is towards getting a place in one of the terraces of the town, where one invariably finds the same people, and the newspaper stall, with the arrival times of the paper still being a big unknown, but with people generally having no problems in not being caught up by the bad news.

This is Porto Santo (translated as holly harbor). Where the sand meets the turquoise sea, and where we discover a world of things to do. It’s just a matter of (re)discovering the island that cures…

More equipment for the Theatre

By Our Islands 421 Comments

Over 30 thousand euro is what the Funchal council will be investing in the acquisition of new equipment for the city theatre. These will give the theatre better technical means to answer the needs of different events, and include new stage material, like all the draping, projectors, electrified rods, cyclorama, intercoms and cabling.

This effort in improving the conditions of the theatre has even been recognized outside Madeira, and has been a factor in determining Funchal as a “player” in the EUNICE network, with the new means making life easier on all the artists and technicians working at the Theatre. This months will be dedicated to repairs in the stage, and the replacement of all worn out equipment. The intention is to start the new season “afresh”, so to speak, with all the new equipment already operational from September 8th.