Isle of Flowers and Eternal Spring

A brief antidote to wintry feelings from Madeira

I am back from Slovenia, dear readers, and while it was a very successful trip—believe it or not, I managed to sneak a picture postcard into my talk about Austrian legal history around 1800—it took 12+ hours to get there (and longer on the return trip).

Over here, back in Norway, winter is here, and while a couple of days of warm winds melted all the snow and ice, temperatures are now firmly below zero degrees Celsius and rain is forecasted for the next two days.

One of the more ‘strange’ aspects of travelling south in the depths of winter is—that the sun rises before 9 a.m. After 4.5 years in Norway, this is becoming a wee bit…well, unexpected (but nonetheless welcome).

Moreover, since I’m in a sunny feeling today, perhaps aided by the sun’s absence in my neck of the woods, I’m not going to post a few picture postcards from Madeira, a Portuguese island in the Atlantic Ocean renowned for its near-perennial spring, beautiful flowers, and, at least to Old Central Europeans, as the exile of choice and final resting place of Austria-Hungary’s last emperor, Charles I (r. 1916-18).

Enjoy a few warm spring greetings from Madeira, then, if you will.

Isle of Flowers and Eternal Spring

First up, a few “composite” specimens with multiple impressions, which serve to convey a quite comprehensive first impression. Both were mailed, although I have, sadly, no way of knowing their dates—I suppose it was the 1970s, though.

Further Single-Image Impressions

This is a special postcard, for its reverse shows next-level consideration in terms of the art of writing postcards:

Mailed in 1985, you can see that the regular text was printed on a piece of paper and then glued to the picture postcard before it was sent. Now, I don’t know for sure if senders Willi and Renate printed the text at home or on-site, but it’s definitely a level of consideration that can hardly be found today…here’s my translation:

3 Nov. 1985 | Dear Hedi! I too travel the world far and wide. Here one finds many hiking trails—how are you? [end of the hand-written part, here’s the printed one]

In MADEIRA the climate is temperate almost all year round. Virtually the entire island has a rocky coast; we don’t stay at the capital FUNCHAL but in MACHICO on the eastern coast where one of the island’s few pebble beaches is found and thus one can bath in the Atlantic. On the neighbouring island PORTO SANTO one finds, it is said, long sand beaches, and maybe we’ll also visit them. A visit to Emperor Charles I’s grave at “Monte” Funchal and a monte sledge ride, as well as a road trip across the island with a rental car are also planned. Sunny greetings from the Island of Flowers, Wille (Heinrich) + Renate

Above and below, the main town of Funchal, although from opposite points of view.

That’s it for now; please let me know if you’d like to see “more” postcards from Madeira. I do think they work quite well against the winter blues…