Santana

Santana was settled around 1550 by people from the Minho, around Braga in northern Portugal, and its people are still nicknamed the "Bragados". As elsewhere on the island, the land was divided among nobles and a few merchants under royal grants, under the system of sesmarias. A royal charter of 2 June 1564 created the parish, separating it from São Jorge and placing its seat at the chapel of Santa Ana — Saint Anne — which gave the town its name.

For centuries Santana was a farming community on a plateau that is broad by Madeiran standards. Its people lived in the triangular thatched houses that became the town's emblem, with a loft for storing crops above the living space, while the parish church was built in 1638. Santana became a vila and the seat of a new municipality in 1835.

Almost all of the original houses have since fallen into disrepair or serve as storage sheds, and a group of them is kept in the centre beside the town hall. On 1 January 2001 Santana was raised to the status of a city. The whole municipality, which reaches up into the mountains as far as Pico Ruivo, is recognised by UNESCO as a biosphere reserve.

The thatched house is Santana's symbol. Families lived under triangular gable roofs that reached almost to the ground, and most surviving examples are now kept for visitors, their straw renewed every few years. The Madeira Theme Park, on seven acres at the edge of town, presents the history, crafts and daily life of Madeira and Porto Santo.

The calendar mixes satire and devotion. A week before Shrove Sunday the Festa dos Compadres parades two straw figures through the streets and stages a mock public trial over a story of an affair and a murder, with plenty of drink to help the deliberations. At the end of July and the start of August the parish celebrates the Santíssimo Sacramento with a mass and a procession with flowers.

The mountains above the town are part of local life too. Since 2002 the astronomy group of the University of Madeira has held its AstroFesta at Achada do Teixeira, among the best places in Portugal for observing the night sky.

The municipality had 6,553 people at the 2021 census, down from 7,719 in 2011, spread across six parishes; the parish of Santana itself had about 3,300 people in 2011 and is the most populous, followed by Faial, with about 1,600, and São Jorge, with about 1,500; Faial is also the largest parish by area, and Arco de São Jorge the smallest in both area and people.

Agriculture has long been the basis of life here, alongside trade, services, hotels and restaurants. Daily coach tours stop in the town at lunchtime, and rural houses, apartments and quintas take overnight visitors who come to walk.

Santana stands on a plateau high above the sea, with fields close around it and the mountains behind. The weather shapes daily life: summers are the coolest on the island, winter brings heavy rain and frequent fog, and the forest slopes above town are among the wettest places on Madeira.

Santana eats as the rest of Madeira does. Espetada — cubes of beef seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic and bay leaf and grilled on bay laurel skewers — is the island's best-known dish, served with bolo do caco, a round flatbread traditionally cooked on a flat basalt slab called a caco, and often with milho frito, fried cornmeal cut into cubes, similar to a very firm polenta.

Espada com banana, a traditional dish of the archipelago, is black scabbardfish fried in batter or breadcrumbs and served with fried banana. In the forest of the interior, the village of Ribeiro Frio, the "cold stream", is known for its trout farm. Produce from the surrounding farms is sold at a Sunday market in the town.

The island's drink is poncha, made with aguardente de cana — a spirit distilled from sugar-cane juice — with honey, sugar and orange or lemon juice. Bolo de mel, the traditional "honey cake" of Madeira, is traditionally made with molasses, and by custom it is torn by hand rather than cut.