Four days in Funchal: a garden city on a volcano, in flower all winter

Built between 1493 and 1517 on the orders of Manuel I, and the reason to go in is above your head: a ceiling of island cedar inlaid with ivory, made when Madeira still had forests worth cutting. Plain and dark outside, which is misleading.

Ten minutes east along the seafront, a yellow fort thrown up in 1614 when pirates were a serious prospect. It holds a small contemporary art collection now, and the ramparts give you the harbour, the cliffs and the whole bowl of the city at once.

Rua de Santa Maria is wall to wall restaurants with people outside trying to seat you. Walk the whole street first, then choose, and order the espetada.

Fifteen minutes and a climb of over five hundred metres from the harbour, in a glass gondola over the roofs, the terraces and the ravines. The view back down is the best in Funchal and the ride is half the reason to do this day.

The grounds of a hotel that no longer exists, planted with a Chinese garden, a koi lake, tile panels rescued from demolished palaces and a great deal of imported stone. Eccentric rather than beautiful, and the better for it. Allow two hours; it is bigger and steeper than it looks from the gate.

A handful of cafés sit around the church square. Nothing remarkable, but you are eating with the whole city and the sea a long way below you.

Two kilometres of public road, on a wicker sledge with wooden runners, pushed and steered by two men in white with straw hats who run behind it in rubber-soled boots. It is faster than you expect and it stops at a car park halfway down, from where a taxi or the bus finishes the job. Do it once.

Two levels around an open courtyard, with a fish hall on the lower floor where they cut up black scabbardfish in front of you. Upstairs the fruit sellers will offer you slices of things you cannot identify, then quote a startling price for a bag of them, so ask before you accept. The building itself, all tiles and iron, is worth the visit alone.

The cafés around the market are where the traders eat, which is the usual sign.

Ten minutes west on the waterfront, half fortress and half palace, and still an official residence rather than a museum. The state rooms are shown on guided tours at set times, and the mix of mannerist ceilings and working government offices is more interesting than it sounds.

Eat in town rather than at the gardens, where the options are a café and not much else.

Terraced up a hillside east of the city, with more than two thousand plants arranged by where in the world they came from, formal beds of coloured succulents, and an aviary of parrots. The view over Funchal from the top terrace is the one on the postcards. Take the bus or the cable car up and walk down if your knees allow.

A convent from the end of the 15th century, founded by the family that settled the island, with walls of blue and white tile and a floor of worn tombstones. Nuns still live in part of it, which is why it is quieter than anywhere else in Funchal.

Back down towards the square, a Jesuit church finished in 1647 whose plain front hides a wall of gilded carving and painted tile inside. The buildings around it are now part of the university, so the courtyard is full of students.

A bica and a bolo de mel, the dark spiced honey cake they make here, before the taxi.