Funchal, Portugal

Madeira is a volcanic island six hundred kilometres off the African coast, and Funchal has been its capital since the fifteenth century. The city occupies the widest south-facing bay on the island, rising steeply from the harbour so that almost every street has a view of the water. Its best-known ascent is the cable car to Monte, which climbs six hundred metres in fifteen minutes over the rooftops; at the top are the Monte Palace tropical garden, planted over a century with species from Africa, Asia and South America, and the church where the last Habsburg emperor is buried. The Mercado dos Lavradores in the centre sells the island's fruit and fish, and the old town's Rua de Santa Maria is lined with painted doors. Beyond the city, the island is walked along its levadas — irrigation channels cut into the mountainside centuries ago, now footpaths with handrails through laurel forest. On the coast west of Funchal, Câmara de Lobos is a working fishing harbour, and Cabo Girão carries a glass platform out over a cliff face that falls close to six hundred metres straight to the sea. November temperatures sit in the low twenties, which is why the island reads as the mildest stop on a late-autumn programme.