Funchal

Funchal takes its name from funcho - the wild fennel that grew along this harbour when Portuguese settlers arrived in 1420 and planted sugar cane instead.

Most visitors know the city for one native son: Cristiano Ronaldo, whose museum sits a few doors from a cathedral built when Madeira wine still funded fleets bound for the New World - the same fortified wine later poured to toast America's Declaration of Independence. Few learn that while photographing the flower stalls of Mercado dos Lavradores or the painted doors of the Zona Velha before the cruise ship sails at four.

VoiceMap's two self-guided audio tours go deeper into that same Old Town: past the Jesuit College and Fort São Tiago on one route, and - with a Madeiran-born guide – through Quinta Vigia's gardens and the square where João Gonçalves Zarco still stands watch on the other.

Plug in your earbuds. The fennel is long gone. The stories aren't.