Santana

What you notice first in Santana is the colour. Triangular thatched houses — the palheiros — stand in deep red, blue and yellow against the impossibly green slopes of northern Madeira, while mist drifts through terraced gardens where bananas and passion fruit grow at altitudes most crops refuse.

Santana holds Madeira's rain-and-mist north coast at around 400 metres, keeping its iconic A-frame houses as living heritage rather than museum pieces — the pitched thatch reaching the ground evolved for insulation and storm resistance, and the primary-colour schemes are maintained under cultural protection rules. The countryside behind is the real depth: the Queimadas Forest Park opens some of the island's most celebrated levada walks into moss-draped laurel forest, gentle-gradient paths threading the UNESCO woodland, and the natural park boundary runs beside the village itself. The village has long been the gathering ground of the island's folk traditions, and the terraced hillsides reward slow morning walks that end at village cafés before the day warms.