Reid's Palace, A Belmond Hotel

William Reid was a Scotsman who arrived in Madeira in 1836 and spent the rest of his life working towards a hotel on the cliff west of Funchal. He died before it was finished. It opened in November 1891, designed by George Somers Clarke and John Thomas Micklethwaite, and it was built for a specific purpose: to receive passengers off the transatlantic liners that stopped at Madeira on the way south.

That era ended and the hotel did not. Churchill stayed and painted here. So did George Bernard Shaw, Albert Schweitzer and Rainer Maria Rilke, and the two presidential suites are named for the first two of them. The afternoon tea, taken on the terrace above the Atlantic, has been an institution for over a century and remains open to non-residents, which means it books up.

There are 158 rooms and suites across ten acres of subtropical garden that drops in terraces to the sea. A substantial renovation modernised the rooms in function while leaving the style alone, and the twin pools were rebuilt with infinity edges facing the bay. There is a third pool, tennis courts, a spa and a fitness room, and direct access down to the water.

William, the flagship restaurant, took a Michelin star in 2016, and there are three other kitchens alongside it.

The tone is the point. The dress code has softened but the hotel is unmistakably from another age, and the appeal is that it has not been updated into something contemporary. This is what a warm-weather holiday looked like before all-inclusive resorts and budget airlines, and there are guests here on their tenth visit and more.

Belmond took it over in 2014. It holds two Michelin Keys. Funchal centre is a walk along the seafront.