Vânia Fernandes, a 23 year-old singer … born in the Madeira Island, she won in Portugal the last edition of the popular Portuguese version of the Idol show called Operação Triunfo. Vânia entered various music contests at the age of 10 and later on she went to perform in hotels and local festivities on Madeira. She did her music studies and singing lessons on the Conservatorio do Funchal (Music and Art Conservatorium in Funchal).

During the music contest (Operação Triunfo) she was highly complimented by the jury … for her prominent voice and strong presence on the stage.

On the 9th of March Vânia will attempt to represent Portugal at the 2008 Eurovision Songcontest. She will be singing the song Senhora do Mar, with her colleagues as backing singers (Evelyne, Jessica, Joana, Jonas and Luis) at the 2008 Festival da Canção. The music was composed by Andrej Babic and the lyrics were written by Carlos Coelho.

We wish her (again) boa sorte! (update) congratulations!

The idea of the Festa da Anona (Cherimoya Feast) was born in 1990, through a group of producers of Faial, that wanted to promote their products (fruit) and thus to call the attention the madeirenses in general.

The initial idea was a Regional Cherimoya Exhibition, nowadays also known as the Anona Festival, … which is to be held at Faial (Santana), on the North Coast of Madeira Island. This is an exhibition specially dedicated to this fruit and its derivatives,…. such as liquors, puddings, ice creams and (beaten) drinks. The programme, with the participation of some hundreds of farm owners, … includes music and contests, … with a traditional Madeira flavor. This year it is its 18th edition.

The cherimoya (Annona cherimola) is a species of Annona. It is a deciduous or semi-evergreen shrub or small tree reaching 7 m tall. The flowers are produced in small clusters, each flower 2-3 cm across, with six petals, yellow-brown, often spotted purple at the base. The fruit is oval, often slightly oblique, 10-20 cm long and 7-10 cm diameter, with a smooth or slightly tuberculated skin. The fruit flesh is white, and has numerous seeds embedded in it. Mark Twain called the cherimoya “the most delicious fruit known to men.” Source: Wikipedia

Related page (most popular): Regional Festivities Calendar

Is it Fly MI? or Fly Me? The last option would have been a good name for an airline …. but Miguel Freitas, former TAP Portugal captain, decided to call it Fly MI … as MI stands for Madeira Islands.

The new airline Fly MI (Funchal) is planning to operate a pair of 190-seat Boeing 737-800s on regular flights from Funchal and Porto Santo to Lisbon and charters from both islands (Madeira and Porto Santo) to Europe.

So there you have it (at last!) … Madeira is going to have its own airline … and its about time!
When? Soon …. I think. Will keep you posted.

Since April last year … some of you will have noticed that something has changed in the Funchal view. Something has been ‘wiped out‘ from the picture. The cable balloon is not anymore!

Start of april last year the Funchal Balloon went down due to hard winds … never seen it again. We don’t know if there will be a 2.0 version of the balloon (not even a beta version?).

We, of the Blog Thoughts Madeira, want not only to inform you about existing attractions …. but we also want to mention …. new ideas! As from Thoughts (Mind) also ideas can exists … therefore we would like to use our Blog (Body?) to share these with you.

How about instead of the balloon we introduce …. (more…)

Attention: follow this link to read the latest update about the race.

As we recently mentioned the Funchal 500 Tall Ships Regatta and Festival do Mar 2008 will be Madeira’s biggest event for this year …. as part of the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of Funchal … capital city of Madeira Islands.

A large fleet of sail training Tall Ships will start (10 – 13 September) from the historic port of Falmouth on the south west coast of England … and race to the Ilhavo, Port of Aveiro – Portugal (20 – 23 September). From there the Tall Ships will continue their race to Funchal – Madeira …. where they will join the festivities, celebrations and Maritime Festival in the city (2 – 5 October).

Also we have a complete list of the participating vessels (more…)