Madeira Island, Portugal
My friend and sometimes photo contributor to WellWaterBlog, Gervais Goodman, visited Madeira in 1956.
Gervais is the dapper young man in this photo, taken while on holiday with his parents.
Before we left on our trip, Gervais went through old family albums and came up with a few photos taken on Madeira when he visited the island as a child. I agreed to try find the location of as many of the photos as possible and attempt to replicate them.
Bear and I took a tour around the island today. We found a few places that seemed like they could be the same as those in Gervais’ photos, but exact matches were difficult to verify.
Gervais’ photo on the left looks very similar to one I took from the balcony of our hotel on the Bay of Funchal, but I can’t be certain it is the same place.
Just about every house on Madeira is white, with a red tile roof, so finding an exact match to any in the old pictures is unlikely.
We saw some wondrous natural sites on the island during our tour, but we were not having much luck matching the historical images.
Late in the afternoon, our guide Suzanna stopped at a scenic lookout near Porto Moniz, on the north shore. We were waiting for a rain squall to pass, so I took the opportunity to show her Gervais’ pictures. Suzanna scrolled through them, making a few comments about likely locations. She came up with some possible scenarios, but no certain matches.
Until she got to this photo. “Look to your left”, she said, “the waterfall in the photo is that one over there!”
Suzanna explained that the road that runs past the waterfall in the old photo no longer exists, replaced by tunnels through the mountain. Also, we were looking at the waterfall from the opposite direction, but the one in Gervais’ 1956 photo is the same as the one we saw today.
Finding joy while travelling is as simple as…
… Chasing Waterfalls.
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GG
Absolutely fantastic. Well done and many thanks.