Photo: Picturesque Township in Madeira

Picturesque townships sit along valleys and ocean coasts on Madeira Island. There, between mountains perched above the clouds, where ridges run between the peaks like geometry in the rough, townspeople carry the traditions of their ancestors as if the rest of the world ceased to exist. Madeira is the nature that surrounds the people. That is an indelible certitude. There is an intimate contact with the island’s natural history. It accentuates how the people live there. It is the way of the islander.