The Monte Palace Tropical Garden is one of the most attractive and beautiful gardens of Madeira Island. It is an unique place of great cultural, artistic, botanical and landscape interest, where you can have magnificent views of Funchal bay.

The whole garden is rich in exuberant vegetation, which has been increased with plants brought in all over the world. Here you can find proteas and cycads from South Africa, azaleas from Belgium, heather from Scotland, acacias from Australia, and two thousand-year-old olive trees from Portugal. It also has an area dedicated to the endemic flora of Madeira where can be appreciated plants characteristic of the island, including typical plants of the Laurissilva Forest, which was classified by UNESCO as a World Nature Heritage. The northern part of the garden has the Oriental Garden decorated with dragons, Buddha's, Foo dogs, lanterns, bridges, pagodas, waterfalls, fountains and birds.

Walking through the Monte Palace Tropical Garden, visitors may come across with beautiful peacocks, wild white swans, blackbirds, wild roosters and hundreds of birds. The many lakes of the garden are populated by Koy fishes of various sizes and colours.

Near the north entrance we can visit the Monte Palace Museum, which opened in 2004 and has three floors of permanent exhibitions. On the ground floor is a vast mineral collection with more than 1000 mineral specimens, mostly from Brazil but also from Portugal, South Africa, Zambia, Peru, Argentina and North America. On this floor there's also an exhibition of precious stones, including diamonds from South Africa, Ruby's from India, and Aquamarines from Brazil. The first and second floors of the Monte Palace Museum exhibit an extraordinary collection of stone sculpture from Zimbabwe.

The paths of this garden also presented several collections, including coats of arms, stonework, windows, sculptures and the biggest private collection of Portuguese tiles that portray social, cultural and religious events from the 16th to the 20th centuries. A special mention should be given to the tallest ceramic vase in the world (according to the Guinness Book of Records) that stands beside the central Lagoon.

Monte Palace Tropical Garden is the heart of a very typical village of Madeira, placed in the top of Funchal amphitheatre.

Visiting Madeira you should not miss the Monte Palace Tropical Garden, one of the highlights that this island has to offer.