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By Manos Angelakis
Reid’s Palace Hotel
P-9000-098 Funchal
Madeira, Portugal
Tel: +351 291 71 7171
Fax: +351 291 71 7177
email: reservations@reidspalace.com
www. reidspalace.orient-express.com
William Reid was a true entrepreneur. He knew from personal experience that Madeira offered the perfect, year round destination for people requiring a warm climate for health reasons. Summer temperatures rarely rise over 27 °C (87 °F), and, in winter, never fall below 10 °C (52 °F), with rain falling less than six days a month. Conditions such as TB, bronchitis, and fevers were best treated far from the notorious damp fogs of Scotland. Even the Lancet journal recommended the island for consumptive patients; "there is no warm country in the world where the irritating influence of wind and dust is so completely absent as in Madeira."
In 1887, Reid began to plan his dream hotel, commissioning the architect George Somers Clarke who had designed the Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo. Apart from superb accommodation, first class service, and cuisine, the hotel was to be surrounded  by ten acres of beautiful sub-tropical gardens in which the guests could walk, rest, and read in the warm sunshine. Before building began, baskets of rich soil had to be carried up the steep hill to create fertile land out of the barren rock into which a colorful array of plants, shrubs, and trees were planted.
In 1888, William Reid passed on, aged just sixty-six, before the completion of the building. His two sons, already in the business as "Hotel Keepers and Wine Merchants" oversaw the end of construction with great attention to detail. In November 1891, Reid's Hotel opened its doors for the first time offering drawing rooms opening onto a verandah, a tennis court, a path down to the rocks and a sea-level bathing pool. And, of course, the lush gardens.
Ever since Orient Express took over Reid’s Hotel, renamed it Reid’s Palace Hotel and refurbished the legendary mansion that overlooks the Atlantic Ocean, the Grand Dame on the Bay of Funchal is enjoying a renaissance. It is now undergoing  further renovations in 70 of the 130 double rooms and 34 suites, plus reshaping of the entrance and reception area.
Basking in the warmth of a sub-tropical climate, the prominent mansion recreates the elegance of days past. The service is discreet but omnipresent, respecting the guest’s need for peace and tranquility. The magnificent exotic gardens surrounding the property overflow the cliff the hotel is perched upon with breathtaking color. Two heated swimming pools, the larger with seawater and the smaller with freshwater, and a sea-level pool with direct access to the sea, give the guests the choice of swimming in either fresh or salt water.
 Having been for over a century the retreat of British political leaders, poets, industrialists and faded stars of London’s West End, it is now enjoying a new favor amongst the entire world’s upper crust. Thankfully, it is no longer the domain of the stiff-upper-lip crowd that had traditional tea every afternoon at the verandah, dressed up every evening in white dinner jackets and cocktail gowns - sporting more diamonds than a Fifth Avenue jeweler’s window - and did not speak to you unless you were formally introduced, except of course at poolside.
A major improvement has taken place in the culinary arena. I remember the formal  Dining Room offering mostly British fare, appropriate I guess to the tastes of the majority of guests. There is now Ristorante Villa Cipriani, and the kitchen creates the mouthwatering regional Italian specialties the Cipriani name invokes; it replaced the informal, non-descript, Villa Cliffs Portuguese restaurant, that had no actual Portuguese guests the few nights we dinned there, as I remember. Les Faunes, a seasonal gourmet restaurant on-premises, serves French creative cuisine. I fondly remember the chocolate soufflé served at Les Faunes, as the best soufflé I have ever had. The Pool Terrace still offers the extensive hot and cold lunch buffet.
A friend from Chicago there last year comments, “They do everything to make your stay as close to perfect as possible… I mentioned to the receptionist that I felt like a piece of chocolate one night and before I was at the room, a waiter had delivered two chocolate bars to my door on a silver tray”.
To make sure that nobody misses Funchal’s other attractions, there is a courtesy bus to downtown. We used it when we decided to visit some of the “wine lodges” as the local wineries are known. Wine is what made Madeira famous all over the world. The dryer wines such as Sercial and Verdelho (Rainwater) are delicious as chilled aperitifs. The sweeter, Boal should be served with dessert and the sweetest and richest wine, the Malmsey, is an outstanding after-dinner drink. Prince Henry the Navigator probably introduced the first vines to Madeira during the initial colonization of the island. Jesuit priests managed the first wine trade and they owned large properties and vineyards. Many of the better wine producers were established in the middle 1700s, but there are only 12 producers left now. The Madeira Wine Company was an association of 27 British-owned producers, now owned by the Blandy and Symington families.
© February 2006 LuxuryWeb Magazine. All rights reserved.
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