Festa da Flor / Flower Festival 2013

Celebrating spring and the wealth of flora it brings us every year, the city of Funchal is once again the stage for this sumptuous spectacle that will please both the eyes and nose.

Historically, the flowers are a fundamental feature of the landscape of Madeira. The island's mild climate allows a variety of flowers to bloom everywhere, which naturally enchant for the beauty they emanate and the scent they exhale. It is in this unique setting that, once again, the city of Funchal is the stage for a sumptuous display that takes place between the 9th to 15th May during which the flower plays its most important role.

The highlight is the Flower Parade, with several groups of over a thousand participants who, bearing costumes depicting flowers, dancing to the sound of exquisitely selected music, through the main arteries of the city, along with fantastic floats, beautifully decorated with many different varieties of flowers of Madeira.

On the morning of Saturday, thousands of children participate in the Children's Parade, beginning at Avenida Arriaga, passing through Avenida Zarco, and arriving at the Town Hall Square to symbolically place their flower on the so-called "Wall of Hope", in an appeal for world peace. The wall set up ends with a release of pigeons and a children's show.

Starting on 9th May, all attentions are drawn to the central area of Avenida Arriaga, where the Flower Market lends to the downtown area a frenetic pulse of flower selling.

Sculptures of flowers made by young people who interact and invite tourists to participate and to register unique images of this event, do justice to the well-known hospitality that characterizes the people of Madeira.

Besides the Flower Exhibition, the art of the construction of the floral carpets will be open to the public until May 15th, at the ‘Largo da Restauração’, which is also a major attraction for those who visit us.

To brighten-up this great Feast of Madeira, there will be constant animation, with the participation of folk and ethnographic groups who, with traditional music and dance, will present the traditions, habits and customs of Madeira.

The Flower Festival of Madeira has increasingly attracted attention in recent years, and its importance as a tourist attraction has granted it an extraordinary reputation in the international and national tourism domain.

      Madeira Flower Festival 2011

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Photos :  Erika Carolina De Sousa      

http://www.turismomadeira.pt