The Flower Festival
Every year Madeira hosts a celebration in honour of spring: the Flower Festival, one of the island's main attractions
The name is suggestive: Flower Festival. It is an event that takes place every year and attracts thousands of people to Madeira, the island that someone once considered to be one of eternal spring!
The Flower Festival was once the name given to the annual flower exhibition organized by Ateneu Comercial do Funchal. Back then, it celebrated spring, but it was also a tribute to the great botanical diversity that adorns the gardens of Madeira, with local and exotic species from as far away as South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.
Starting in 1979, there was the idea of bringing the celebrations to the street. That was the dawn of the flower parade, in which hundreds of people, including children, filled the streets of Funchal with colour and joy, performing choreographies and displaying costumes and floats full of flowers.
The Flower Parade is now the main attraction of the program. Also included is an exhibition of floral carpets, in Avenida Arriaga, and the construction of the Wall of Hope, in Praça do Município, where children lay flowers in the hopes of building a better world.
The Flower Festival has become one of the most original and iconic events in Madeira's tourist calendar. Like everything else that happens on this island, it is experienced by locals and visitors alike. This is, after all, the destination where visitors are invited to live like locals. ■