Madeira (5) Photographic Museum and the Madeira Botanical Garden

This is a new post though it covers the events of the 22nd and 23rd of April 2023
It will be moved to its appropriate chronological position shortly.

The Atelier Vicente and Exotic Plants

A Brief Introduction

Portugal

Madeira

Madeira, as you probably know, is a Portuguese Island in the Atlantic, 1,000km south west of Lisbon and 700km west of the Moroccan coast. It measures 50km from east to west, 20km from north to south and rises to 1,861m (6,106 ft) at Pico Ruivo. It has 250,000 permanent inhabitants, half of whom live in the capital, Funchal. Our hotel was in the Lido district, 40 minutes' walk along the coast west of central Funchal.

Madeira

22-April-2023

Funchal

After a leisurely breakfast we walked into central Funchal, a pleasant 40-minute stroll on mainly level ground. I described the walk in Madeira (2): Mercado and Monte Palace Gardens, but there is always room for a photo of one of the Jacarandas along the way. They were only just in bloom when we arrived and each day had become more and more spectacular.

One of Funchal's many jacarandas

The Atelier de Vicente

I am not sure how we heard about the Atelier Vicente. Perhaps we spotted it on a wander through Funchal’s narrow streets, maybe we had a whisper from this chap…

Having a word with the silent waiter, Funchal

…but probably not. He stands in the street all day and never talks to anyone.

Vicente Gomes da Silva set up his photography studio in 1865, it was not only the first studio in Madeira, it was the first in Portugal.

Atelier Vicente

In the 17th and 18th centuries, scientists had noted that silver oxide turns black on exposure to light and struggled to use this knowledge to produce images. In the first half of the 19th century the work of Nicéphore Niépce, Louis Daguerre, Henry Fox Talbot and others had led to light-fast cameras, the ability to fix the negative image, print a positive image and then to print multiple images.

By the time Vicente opened his studio, exposure times had been reduced and a workable method of enlarging photographs existed. A client requiring a portrait could be guaranteed a reasonably short sitting and, a little while later, a likeness that was accurate and detailed. Vicente could photograph a whole family, or an important individual with an appropriate backdrop.

The place to pose for a photo, Atelier Vicente

He must have been good at his job, in 1860 he photographed the Empress Elizabeth of Austria and in 1901 his son Vicente Júnior photographed the Portuguese king, D. Carlos I and his queen D. Amélia de Orléans.

The atelier was a family business for four generations and finally closed in the 1970s. In 1979 it was bought by the city of Funchal and turned into Madeira's museum of photography.

Vicente’s dark room is still there, and there is also a collection of photographic equipment.

Dark room, Atelier Vicente

There is also a collection of 2 or 3 million photographs. Those on display include late 19th century pictures of horse drawn goods vehicles in the streets of Funchal with runners rather than wheels, a commercial version of the toboggans that still bring tourists down from the Monte Palace (if they are prepared to pay handsomely for a ride that goes nowhere useful.) The oily laurel wood and the local cobbles work well together.

Part of the Atelier de Vicente collection

There was also this oddity.

A family portrait

I looked at it and had the unkindly thought that Madeira does produce a lot of rum. Lynne looked at it and said, ‘She’s dead.’ Apparently, there was once a fashion of dressing up the recently deceased and posing them in one last family photograph. Surely not in the UK? Well, yes, the BBC ran a news item about it (how do the fashions of 150 years ago become ‘news’?) and this is a link to their photos .BBC News Taken from Life. Warning, the high infant mortality rate back then means that a lot of the photographs are of children propped up among their more lively siblings. If this sort of thing upsets you, please do not click on the link.

Rather more cheerfully, this section ends with a set of photographs of Winston Churchill painting at Câmara de Lobos - we visited a couple of days ago.

Winston Churchill at Câmara de Lobos

The Madeira Botanical Gardens

Our walk ended at the taxi rank at the Café de Teatro Square.

The Cafe de Teatro - the taxi rank is the line of yellow cars left of picture

Four days ago, we took the cable car up to the Monte Palace gardens. They are a private endeavour set up in their present form in 1987. Their star features are the Chinese and Japanese gardens tumbling down the hillside.

The Madeira Botanical gardens opened in 1960 and specialise in groups of plants, Madeiran indigenous and endemic species, succulents, palm trees and cycads and more. Although set on the hillside it is nearer the city and the slope is less dramatic. The best way to get there is by the relatively cheap taxis, our choice, or by bus, though it is accessible by a cable car but only from Monte Palace.

It is neat and tidy and the flower beds are set in geometrical patterns, while many of the flowers themselves are big and showy. I am not a gardener, but if I was, this is the garden I might like to have.

Madeira Botanical Gardens, there are several levels like this down the slope

Perhaps it is best to let the plants speak for themselves (metaphorically speaking).

Begonia Grandis, or Hardy Begonia. There is little threat to its hardiness in Madeira's balmy climate.

Hardy Begonia

Brunfelsia pauciflora is known in Portuguese as Ontem-hoje-e-amanhã (Yesterday, today and tomorrow.) A member of the nightshade family it is endemic to Brazil and is cultivated for ornamental use.

Yesterday, today and tomorrow

We followed the path down…

The path down, Madeira Botanical Gardens

…to the next level of cultivation….

The next level

….where we saw Argyranthemum frutescens Marguerite of Paris Daisy – an odd name for a native of the Canary Islands. Garden Marguerites are hybrids derived from this species.

Marguerites

Salvia Spledens or Scarlet Sage originated in the warm, humid highlands of Brazil. Smaller cultivars are popular in public gardens and shopping malls worldwide, though in its wild form to grows to around 1.3m.

Salvia Splendens or Scarlet Sage

The next level was a chocolate box of a garden. I like this format, though I can imagine others disagreeing. A garden is an artificial creation, so why pretend it is in any way wild?

A chocolate box garden

Down there we met Kumara plicatilis or Fan-Aloe, a native of South Africa’s Western Cape region…,

Fan Aloe

…and Kalanchoe Tetraphylla one of a large genus of sun-loving tropical succulents mostly native to South Africa and Madagascar. This one is known as Elephant’s Ears, though more for their shape than their size.

Elephant's Ears

Then we went on to the cactuses…

Lynne among the cactuses

…and their spikey relatives.

Spikey trees

We had now almost reached the bottom of the garden. The view over the fence showed us that we had come up a long way up from the coast – the sea is just visible on the far left of the photo. We were, though, still a long way below the Monte Palace Gardens.

Funchal

There was little left to do now beyond taking photographs of Lynne beside a pond of terrapins…

Lynne and the terrapins

…and the final plant, the remarkable Bottlebrush bush. This is one of the many species of Callistemon, native to Australia.

The Bottlebrush bush

Return from the Botanical Gardens

Leaving the botanical gardens, we found a taxi waiting in the car park, and were soon back at the Café de Teatro. The driver joined the queue at the taxi rank, and we had a glass of lunch.

A glass of lunch, Cafe de Teatro, Funchal

Rehydrated, we set out to walk back to our hotel, passing through a park beside the road. Here we encountered more flora, including a Bird of Paradise Flower (or Strelitzia). The genus was named by Joseph Banks in honour Geroge III’s wife Queen Charlotte (of Mecklenburg-Strelitz). Banks was a serious-minded scientist, but a bit of creeping never does any harm.

Bird of Paradise flower

There are five species (I think this is strelitzia reginae). All are native to South Africa, though they travel well and since 1952 the Bird of Paradise flower has been the floral emblem of Los Angeles.

Nearby, past several more Jacaranda, was a Coral Tree (or Flame Tree, though both names are sometimes applied to other trees).

Coral Tree (Erythrina abyssinica)

More exactly it is Erythrina abyssinica - a board attached to the tree told me, so it must be true. This one may be African in origin but other species of this legume originate in Asia and the Americas.

Enough flora, so here is a representative of the fauna. Unlike the trees, this Madeiran Wall Lizard is a true local.

Madeiran Wall Lizard

We did little in the afternoon, we were on holiday and do not have to spend all our time running round looking at things.

Holiday things, Madeira

Our dining experience later can be found in Madeira: Eating and Drinking.

The next day we said a fond ‘goodbye’ to Madeira and enjoyed a thankfully uneventful journey home.

Madeira

Introduction
Part 1: A First Look at Central Funchal
Part 2: Mercado and Monte Palace Gardens
Part 3: Funchal to Santana
Part 4: Eira do Serrado and Câmara de Lobos
Part 5: Photography Museum and Madeira Botanical Garden
Part 6:Eating and Drinking

Malta: Eating and Drinking

Searching Out the Food and Drink that Makes Malta Special

Malta

We spent a week in Malta, nowhere near long enough to become experts on Maltese cuisine, but time enough to eat in several cafés and restaurants, and peruse the menus of many more. We were not interested in the myriad bars hawking Aperol spritz – two for the price of one during certain hours - not just because Aperol is not our drink, but because such bars can be found anywhere from Liverpool to Ljubljana. We were, though, interested to discover that every Maltese restaurant has rabbit on the menu. Now, that makes Malta special.

Meat

Rabbit

Rabbit is so popular in Malta that almost every restaurant heads its ‘meat mains’ with ‘Maltese Rabbit Stew.’ It is an ordinary sort of stew with onions, garlic, red wine, tomato, nutmeg, various herbs and chopped vegetables, but none the worse for that. Lynne enjoyed hers, she always likes a rabbit, though lurking in the depths was a big block of offal; kidneys, liver and other organs. We generally both enjoy liver and kidney, but rabbit’s offal has a strong, rather rank flavour which she found disagreeable.

Maltese Rabbit Stew

The Maltese used to hunt rabbit, but loss of habitat and over-exploitation have reduced the wild population so hunting is now strictly controlled. Most rabbits on Valetta’s menus are locally farmed.

Pulled Rabbit Rigatoni

When it was my turn for rabbit, I chose pulled rabbit rigatoni. Maltese food is heavily influenced by their neighbours across the sea to the north, and every menu offers a multitude of pasta dishes. The rabbit had been so assiduously shredded that almost became part of the sauce, but I enjoyed the full rich flavour and the fresh, al dente pasta.

Veal

Veal virtually disappeared in the UK over 20 years ago over justified animal welfare concerns. The EU has introduced strict regulation since then, the notorious ‘veal crates’ have been banned and welfare standards raised considerably. On that basis I decided that while Lynne ate her rabbit, I would indulge in the unaccustomed pleasure of veal. And a fine piece of meat it was, luxuriating in its lemony sauce.

Veal with a Lemon Sauce

I had some qualms, not everything is perfect in the European veal industry, but I do not accept the still surprisingly prevalent British view that ‘all foreigners are beastly to animals, cos,… well ...they're foreign, aren’t they?’

Wild Boar

Although not native to Malta wild boar were introduced in ancient times for hunting, and thrived. They continue to thrive despite the loss of habitat. They are a nuisance to farmers and a nuisance when they charge down the streets of small towns. The herd is managed and licences are issued to cull the excess.

Wild boar stew

Some wild boar is game-y, some less so. This example, stewed in red wine and surrounded by puréed cauliflower was of the game-y variety. Well-cooked and tender, I enjoyed it very much.

Most restaurants will offer steak, too, if you want to spend money, but lamb and pork exercise menu writers far less. Even chicken only puts in an occasional appearance.

Fish and Sea Food

For an island nation, the Maltese do not seem that interested in fish. Occasionally dourada or swordfish appear on menus, but the ever-presents are sea food such as prawns, lobsters. mussels, octopus and squid. Prawns and lobsters are largely corralled in the starters section, where we no longer go as we cannot eat a starter and a main course (one of the joys of getting older!) or among the pastas.

My friend Brian suggested I should try sea urchin with pasta, as he had been amazed that they bothered to collect and then cook anything so insubstantial with so little flavour. I would have given them a go, but found they are only available September to March and we visited in April.

Mussels

Mussels are much more familiar and, as elsewhere, can be starters or a main course depending on portion size.

Mussels

Lynne enjoyed these moules marinière which we extremely large and fleshy. They came with the inevitable frites.

Squid

Squid is always popular and the usual Maltese way with is to slice up small squid and fry them in tempura batter.

Battered squid, Marsaxlokk

Lynne ate her squid on the dock at Marsaxlokk. It was fine, she said, but there was just too much of it.

Octopus

Octopus with Garlic is the Rabbit Stew of the sea, i.e. it is on every menu and usually right at the top. We both tried it, Lynne in Valletta, me in Marsaxlokk.

Garlic Octopus, Marsaxlokk

We both thought the garlic could have been more assertive and although I would not want rubbery octopus, I would have preferred a little more texture. I suppose the quantity of garlic and precise duration of cooking are matters of personal preference, there is no one ‘correct’ way to cook an octopus (though of course, I am right).

Desserts

I have admitted that we cannot manage starters any more, sadly the same is often true of desserts. But here are a couple we enjoyed.

Halva Ice Cream

Halva was not much in evidence anywhere else, but it did turn up in an ice-cream. Densely textured and very sweet, it was sumptuous rather than subtle.

Halva ice cream

Imqaret

A traditional Maltese dessert of spiced date paste, in a triangular pastry case, deep fried and sprinkled with chopped nuts.

Imqaret

There are more traditional Maltese desserts and I would happily do further research on this subject.

Snacks and Light Lunches

Pastizzi, Ftira and Arancini

(Thanks to Wilson and Norma without whose advice we might easily have missed pastizzi completely.) A pastizz is a traditional savoury made by folding filo or puff pastry round ricotta cheese or curried peas.

Two pastizzi, one peas, one cheese

The ricotta version is excellent, but the real star for me were pea pastizzi. Dried green split peas are boiled almost to a mush with a little onion, garlic and mild curry powder, enfolded in pastry and baked. From such simple ingredients comes one of the world’s finest lunchtime snacks. They are extraordinarily popular throughout Malta, costing €1 each in Valletta or €0.60 on Gozo.

Ftira is a small ring-shaped bread, but in a café ‘ftira’ means such a bread filled with tuna (in our case) or sardine, tomato and more. Given the quality of Maltese bread, ftira are predictably, a delight.

Arancini at the front, ftira on the plate behind

Arancini, as the name implies, are Italian (specifically Sicilian) but are widely available in Malta. They consist of a filling, we chose ham and cheese, inserted into a ball of rice which is breadcrumbed and deep fried.

Ham and cheese arancini

It looks good, but was the least interesting of these three, perhaps because of our choice of filling; wet cured ham and ricotta cheese hardly pack a flavour punch.

A Salad

Cafés are not abundant in the citadel of Victoria, the unofficial capital of the island of Gozo. 21st century commercialism would jar against the old stones, though doubtless there was plenty of crude commercialism in the citadel’s heyday. There are, though, a couple of restaurants, and we found our way to one - via two flights of stone stairs and a circular staircase – and ordered a sharing salad.

A sizeable platter of cheese, tomatoes, onions, olives and capers soon arrived. It looked impressive, and once we had poured olive oil all over it, it tasted wonderful. The salad, though, raises two issues not covered hitherto, bread and cheese.

Sharing salad, Gozo

Bread

Maltese bread, with a crisp crust and firm interior, was uniformly excellent and may be the best bread we have encountered. French baguettes are superb – or were before they started adding preservatives to make it last longer – the black breads of the Baltic states, spread with garlic butter, bring back fond memories, but neither quite match the Maltese. It is not only excellent, but versatile - it even toasts well.

Cheese

Malta has few cows – they need too much space – so most cheese, including that in our salad, is made from sheep’s milk. Some of the cheeselets can be seen to be covered in something dark. These are speciality known as gbejniet tal-bzar – cheese rolled in crushed black peppercorns and matured for few days. We bought some earlier to try at home.

Gbejbiet tal-bzar

I thought the cheese was better without the pepper, others may disagree.

Drinking

Wine

Palatino Merlot

We drank Maltese wines almost exclusively. Most Valletta restaurants provide a short list of wines at €22 - €28 (they retail at €7 - €9) covering the usual grape varieties.  Quality wines are designated DOK (Denominazzjoni ta' l-Oriġini Kontrollata) Malta or Gozo depending on origin. Most lists also offer a selection of more expensive cuvées but we did not venture there.

Ulysses Shiraz

The Palatino Merlot, was a soft fruity wine, easy drinking and very pleasant, but their Sauvignon Blanc was a little disappointing, falling uncomfortably between the New Zealand and French styles. We drank the Sauvignon Blanc with lunch by the harbour in the seaside village of Marsaxlokk where our disappointment was eased by prices dropping from the Valletta range to a pleasing €12 - €15.

Marsovin’s Caravaggio Chenin Blanc, unlike Caravaggio himself, was too well-mannered and could have been spikier. Their Ulysses Shiraz (POK Gozo) was excellent. Rich with tannins it was well armed to take on my wild boar.

Beer

The most drunk beer in Malta is Cisk, which can be see in several of the ‘light lunch’ photos above. It was not a beer I enjoyed much, being somewhat short of flavour and not particularly refreshing, but it was cheap. The same brewery (Farsons) produces Hopleaf Pale Ale which has more flavour and a pleasant bitterness. There are also several craft beers which could be explored.

And Finally...

A Michelin Starred Pig’s Ear

The day we travelled to Malta, we were up at 2.30, caught a plane from Manchester at 7.00 and arrived in Malta on time at 11.30 (with a +1 hour time change). After a little difficulty first locating our prebooked complimentary taxi, and then our apartment block (we had been given the wrong address) we were dropped off at 12.30. There was no reception and no way to get in until we were provided  with the key codes, promised between 2.00 and 3.00.

Tired, hungry and thirsty we dragged our suitcase to Market Street which, our homework had suggested, would be full of restaurants. It was indeed, the pedestrianised street had covered decks by the roadside at the bottom end and further up a line of plastic ’tents’ down the centre.

We reached the first deck, saw the word ‘snack’ on the menu outside, climbed aboard and sat down. We made our choices, turned over the menu and saw the €125 set menu with a flight of matched wines costing much the same. We had apparently strayed into Michelin star territory while in search of a lunchtime snack. Never mind, an obliging young man took our order for a sharing plate of Serrano ham, a bottle each of Sarson’s Hopleaf Pale Ale, a big bottle of water and two pig’s ears.

We waited some time, but eventually our beers arrive, as did the water (which had becoming increasingly important) and the bread and olive oil without which no Maltese meal can start.

A further wait ensued before the ham arrived. In Michelin star style it arrived, not alone but with a bowl of olives and a little offering of fishy paté.

Serrano Ham, Bread and Olives, Grain Street, Valletta

After some pleasant nibbling we were starting to feel better physically, but time had moved on and neither our key codes had arrived, nor our pig’s ears.

Years ago, I would regularly enjoy a day’s walking with Brian, Francis, Mike and whoever else was available. Brian would always turn up with a greasy paper bag containing two deep fried pig’s ears he had bought at the dog food stall in Stafford market. He threw them to the fittest and most eager member of our group, Francis’ dog Dino, who crunched them up with relish.

I have eaten pig’s ears myself (as has Brian) not from the dog food counter but in restaurants in Portugal. We agree that there is a porblem with them; inside every bite there is a strip of cartilage, just like there is in our own ears, and it is not pleasant. So why had I ordered them? Bravado? Stupidity? I don't know.

Michelin stars are not handed out for nothing and we were at Grain Street, one of Malta's three such restaurants. The pig’s ears that finally arrived were sweet and porky, the blobs of tarragon infused mayonnaise a lovely accompaniment. And the cartilage? I do not know where it went, but I found myself pondering whether it had removed by butchery, cookery or wizardry.

Pig's Ear, Grain Street, Valletta

I should have ordered one between us, but we finished the two and felt replete. But 3 0’clock had passed and we still had no key codes. I called our contact number and found the phone switched off, a second number went to voicemail and I left an anxious message. We wondered what we should do if we had been scammed (despite using a major booking company) and there was no apartment. Then my phone rang, there was no apology, but the promise of an immediate Whats Ap message, and a few minutes later our problems were over.

Pressure off, we were able to acknowledge how much we had enjoyed our Michelin starred snack. It cost a lot for  a snack, but it served as our main meal for the day, making it a bargain. We picked up some bread, salami and a bottle of wine in a convenience store, found our apartment and relaxed after a long and occasionally stressful day.

In Conclusion

Malta produces, meat and seafood dishes, pastries, salads, desserts and wines of high quality. Enjoy them. If, however, you don’t like their food, no worries, you can exist on pizzas and burgers….

…but, if that is how you feel, why not consider staying at home. Malta, like Venice, Amsterdam, the Canaries and others is struggling under the pressure of too many tourists.