In stark contrast to Madeira, Porto Santo is quite flat and mostly arid: Very little grows here, and most of the 5,000 inhabitants depend on a steady stream of summer tourist for income.

There is just one reason for visiting Porto Santo: its glories beach of golden sand that sweeps 8 kilometres along the south coast. Only a handful of hotels and one campsite interrupt the atmosphere of unhurried calm, despite the seasonal influx of visitors. 37 kilometres northeast of Madeira, it is reached by catamaran or plane.

The capital, Vila Baleira, was once home to the Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus, who came as a buyer for Lisbon sugar merchants in the 1470s. He later married Dona Filipa Moniz, the daughter of Porto Santo’s governor. Their house is now the Casa Museu Cristovao Colombo, where books, maps and charts document the explorer’s life.

Dona Filipa died in childbirth and legend has it that while grieving, staring out to sea, Columbus became convinced that the vegetation washing ashore came from another continent; he was thus inspired to make his Atlantic crossing in 1492.