Author's product rating: 
| Advantages: |
Plants and birds in a semi - tropical environment |
| Disadvantages: |
A little steep, some paths uneven |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
yes |
~Introduction~
Jardim Botanico or the Botanical Garden is located on a hillside over looking Funchal on the Portuguese island of Madeira. As Madeira has a climate best described as semi-tropical it has a whole host of plants both native and imported. Jardim Botanico is one of many gardens in and around Madeira and is a garden that represents the many differing plants that are on display all over
Madeira. It's most famous item or the most photographed part of the garden is it's carpet bedding or choreographed garden. A splendid display of multi-coloured plants all arranged and shaped into diamonds, squares, lines and even lettering. The choreographed garden has been photographed so much that it is present on many of the postcards for sale in and around Madeira.
~Getting there~
By Car - Jardim Botanico is located on the hillside above the dual carriageway or 'Rapide' that twists, turns, tunnels and leaps it way through the hills and valleys above Funchal. It is sign-posted from this dual carriageway and also from the town centre, so you could follow these. Unfortunately there is not much parking only a small off-road car park for about a dozen cars, but as it is located only 2.5km (1.5 miles) from the town there are other options available.
By Tour coach - All the major tour companies do a trip to the Jardim Botanico, I am unsure of the cost involved, but it will get you to the top entrance gate in style and pick you up from the bottom gate. The tour companies are clever and tend to all go at the same time after about 3pm when the day is cooling down, hence it will be packed out with groups in the afternoon.
By Bus - Our particular mode of transport for this day out was one of the many yellow buses that link the hilly parts of Funchal together. The bus we took was the no: 31 from down town Funchal on the Avenue de Mar, however numbers 29 and 32 also pass by the gardens (although only 31 terminates at the gardens). Buses run approximately every thirty minutes, but it is best to pick up a timetable from any of the little green kiosks along the front in Funchal as times vary according to the season. The buses we got were on time and they are a cheap way to get around Funchal, but not the most comfortable. There was no air-conditioning and there was little or no access for disabled users as the buses have a high ground clearance. As a result the steps are steep and the seats were few, about 24-30 seats in all. Cost of the bus to the garden was 1 Euro 30 cents for each adult so it cost us 5 Euros and 20 cents (£3.50) for two adults on a return trip.
By Taxi- Our preferred mode of transport in and around Funchal, although we didn't use it on this particular trip. The taxi's are normally large Mercedes E or S classes with leather seats and are well looked after by the drivers. They are a bright yellow with a blue stripe down the door and a taxi light on the roof. They will only pick you up at taxi ranks or if you have ordered one from your hotel. Normally a trip from downtown Funchal to our hotel cost around 5 Euros for a distance of 2km. So I would budget for about 6 or 7 Euros (£5) each way if you were to take a taxi from downtown Funchal to the gardens.
~Entrance~
The no.31 bus terminated at the top garden entrance alongside the tiny and full car park. It was midday by the time we reached the garden entrance and it was quite quiet. The fee to get in was 3 Euros (£2) per adult, for the money we got two pieces of blue paper and nothing else, so no map and no idea of the lay out of the gardens. We walked into the garden and past a large house on the right already spilling over with groups. This house had a museum of Madeira's history and a gift shop. We didn't look inside as we had already done another history museum and we were tired of the gift shops.
~The upper garden~
Jardim Botanico is laid-out on a hillside with steep cobbled paths in the upper tree clad gardens and smooth concrete paths in the middle and lower gardens. In this review I have divided it into upper, middle and lower gardens although the gardens themselves are not described in this way, I felt it was easier to describe and easier to write.
We started in the upper garden near the house and walked along a path through trees and shrubs to the far western side of the garden. Here there were numerous examples of pines, palms and bizarrely a 'sausage tree', an ordinary looking tree very similar to a Birch with long fine branches, but no visible 'fruit'. Further on there were bunches of Aloe Vera plants underneath the tree canopies with names carved into them by random visitors. At the end of the path there was a viewpoint area that looked across the northern part of Funchal. From here we could see the cable car ride or 'Telefericos da Madeira' to Monte and we could see Monte's famous church. We could even see the 'Monte Palace Tropical Garden' which we had visited a week earlier. At the viewpoint we were also aware of another point higher up so we went up to investigate. It was a bit of a climb, but it was sheltered by numerous palm trees and soon we were up by the 'Lovers Grotto'. A hillside viewpoint with a little cave dug into the hill. The view down to Funchal was much better up here although the dual carriageway was still there bridging across a valley. The Lovers grotto was anything but romantic, more like a damp smelly cave. We moved on back down the garden into the middle area.
The middle gardens had a café area that was closed and a couple of toilets that were okay, but not completely clean. There were a few pools with Begonia beds surrounding them and numerous Fuchsia plants around the edge. There was a cage of birds under the tree canopy and then we saw a view of the choreographed garden from above. The multi-coloured bedding looked absolutely sensational in the striking midday sun. We walked around the upper edge of the garden and the dropped down to view the garden from within. Walking around the choreographed garden we were in awe of the bedding just as the sprinkler system decided to kick in and water the garden! Due to my nifty footwork and dash of speed I was okay, but Mrs Cad stood like a stunned rabbit and got a good soaking. It was a hot day and Mrs Cad soon dried out in the midday sun. We managed to escape further soakings and get out of the garden. Lower down we walked through the Madeira garden full of native plants seen on the island. Canary Palms, Dragon plants with their striped leaves with red 'tongue' flowers on the tips and lots of ground cover plants. We then went on to a greenhouse area where they grew all the varieties of plants in pots ready to plant outside and viewed a replica of a small Madeira house.
As we dropped down into the lower part of the gardens we came across a large pond full of Terrapins drifting along in the warm waters. From here we could see and here the final part of the garden the tropical birds. Walking past the lower gate and a squawking Macaw we drifted into the tropical bird compound during feeding time. The noise was deafening as the numerous birds were fully awake and making the most of feeding time. There were other birds such as chickens and pheasants walking around outside the cages, but as we are not really bird people we only stayed a short time before we moved back up towards the upper gate.
It was here that we found the only disadvantage of the garden, the pathways. As with all pathways in Madeira, most of the paths in Jardim Botanico were made up of little cobble stones laid in patterns. This is all very good and very nice, but sometimes it feels a little uneven under foot and can lead to the odd stumble. In saying this I remembered that Mrs Cad had defied my request for sensible shoes and was wearing slip on sandals. Even I was wearing sandals and neither of us had any problems until we started to climb up. Now we were tired, we found the going difficult and both of us stumbled a couple of times. In the middle and lower gardens the paths were more even and much easier to walk on, but by the time we hit the upper gardens they were much more uneven and there was little shade.
At the end our walk back up to the garden to get to the bus stop paid of as we managed to get a seat on our bus back down to Funchal. If we were to wait at the lower gate we would have had to board the bus and stand all the way down the hill.
~Conclusion~
We thought Jardim Botanico was a very nice garden although I would say that we thought it was a little old fashioned. In the end we decided that we preferred the more modern Japanese orientated 'Monte Palace Tropical garden' at the top of the cable car ride to Monte. Even so I would still recommend Jardim Botanico as a fine garden and you certainly get a feel of the numerous plants and birds that live in semi-tropical locations. I would go again although I would probably take a bit more time as walking around quickly can really tire you out.
Thank you for reading, rating and commenting.
Martin.
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