Picture an immense ocean. An endless sea with translucent waters with mild temperatures.
Now imagine that in the midst of this an immense mass of rock rises up from the depths, which is understood to have stood there for eighteen million years, with basalt as its rock base.

Rodolfo Gouveia (http://rodinet.blogspot.com) explains that at least 5.2 million years ago (as the Miocene era gave way to the Pliocene) coral reefs began to grow around the young island. Due to the upward motion of the island and volcanic activity during the ice age or even later, these reefs were eventually to be found 475m above the level of the open sea near S. Vicente.
Now think that, after all those years, there lays an island with a flora as ancient as time where it is possible to dive into the dawn of history.

So far, so good. And you can stop dreaming – because such an island exists. It is called Madeira, and is a self-governed region of Portugal, that country which introduced the old world to new worlds in the 15th century.

The island of Madeira lies on a longitude between 16° 16' 30'' W and 17° 16' 38'' W, and a latitude between 32° 22' 20'' N and 33° 7' 50''.

The archipelago is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, 500 km from the coast of Africa and 1,000 km from mainland Europe (Portugal its closest country on the continent). It consists of the islands of Madeira and Porto Santo and the uninhabited Selvagens and Desertas islands.

Madeira itself has an area of 741 Km2 (57 km long and 22 km wide).

By air, the island is a one-and-a-half hour flight from Lisbon, and around two-and-a-half to three hours from other major European cities.

To find out more, you can visit these websites: