Named after an enterprising ornithologist, 1905 Zino’s Palace stands like a pink frosted cream cake on a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean on the southern coast of Madeira.
Surrounded by banana plantations and verdant mountains that rise up steeply, it is an idyllic retreat to while away a few relaxing days.
Now state-owned and managed by Amazing Evolution, a Portuguese hotel management company, it stands close to Ponta do Sol (Sunny Point) and boasts an open-air swimming pool on a large terrace and friendly staff. Indeed, so cordial are staff members such as Gina and Valerio, leisurely breakfast for my companion and I often lasted until Noon as we sat outside enjoying the sunshine and the light-hearted banter.
Quality conversation being a key element of any memorable holiday, even when we returned from a day of sightseeing we’d sit at one of the terrace tables, sip delicious Madeira wine and discuss philosophical issues such as the nature of life and death, the possibility of intelligent extraterrestrial life and their presence on Earth and the nature of ghosts.
If that wasn’t satisfying enough, there was also our cozy room, one of nine pastel-colored rooms on the property, with its romantic canopy bed and a small balcony from which nightly we gazed up at the firmament to stars glistening in a velvet sky and across the gleaming waters of the Atlantic, not to mention the mountain slopes that cloaked us in darkness.
Our bed was one of the most comfortable I’ve ever slept in and the glass-surround shower one of the most soothing I’ve ever showered in, with supremely soft towels to boot.
A well-stocked mini-bar contained an intriguing drink, beir, a strong herbal liqueur. There was also a giant flat TV screen, which we never watched, and tea and coffee facilities.
Down a short flight of stairs was a spacious leisure room with an abundance of books and other reading material including glossy informative pictorial guides to the island itself, 700 kilometers east of Morocco.
Zino’s Palace is a short 20-minute coastal drive from the capital, Funchal, and less than an hour’s travel along the coast or inland up gentle-sloping mountain roads to Ponte Moniz where a spectacular health-giving, mineral-filled bathing area ringed by naturally sculpted volcanic rock formations awaits locals and tourists alike.
As for the ornithologist after whom Zino’s Palace is named, Paul Alexander Zino. A native of Madeira of British parents and Nature lover and life-long protector of our feathered friends, his legacy is that a small endangered seabird, Zino’s petrel, was named after him as a mark of his conservation work.
