- Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago of four islands located in the Atlantic Ocean, 320 miles (520km) from Morocco and 250 miles (400km) north of the Canary Islands.
- The capital is Funchal. Madeira may have been the Islands of the Blessed in Greek Mythology.
Islands of the Blessed
- Plutarch wrote in ‘Parallel Lives’, ‘Sertorius’ (75 CE), that a Roman Commander called Quintus Sertorius (died 72 CE), heard mention in Cadiz, of the Islands of the Blessed.
- He said that the sailors there spoke of a pair of idyllic islands in the Atlantic, 10,000 leagues from Africa.
- The Islands of the Blessed have been variously identified with the Canary Islands, Cape Verde Islands, Azores and even Bermuda.
Macaronesia
- Macaronesia is a group of four archipelagos located in the Atlantic Ocean near to the coasts of Europe and Africa.
Madeira