Our guide was a very nice young woman called Zoe. It became apparent that she had not been on the island very long and had been trained in what to demonstrate to us. Most of this was good but missed some very important events. I instance some of the pedestrianisation of large parts of the town in the last 20 years which has changed the atmosphere of the town and made it far more tourist friendly and retail biased. It was peculiar that the painted doors in Rua de St Maria which occurred from 2009 were pointed out but other changes were not. Similarly, and far more seriously, floods of water coming down from the hills which occurred in 18?? and 1910 were mentioned. No reference was made to the torrential flood that occurred in February 2010 was not mentioned. Surely a natural disaster which resulted in circa 50 people dead or missing should have been covered? On the plus side the tour accessed previously Jesuit occupied buildings, the Town Hall gardens and of course, Blandys.

We had a great tour with our excellent English speaking guide. We’ve visited Madeira previously but keen to find out more of the history around Madeira town, the tour did just that. We discovered lots about Madeira as well as discovering some places off the usual tourist trail. Thoroughly enjoyable and highly recommended.

Wir waren mit dem Guide Viktoria aus Österreich sehr zufrieden. Sie hat uns mit ihrer gewinnenden Art, Engagement und auch viel Hintergrundwissen durch die historische Altstadt geführt. Zum Glück für uns hatten nur wir (2) diesen Termin gebucht. Sehr, sehr empfehlenswert.