Porto Santo Beach

Porto Santo lies forty-five kilometres north-east of Madeira and is its opposite: low, dry, treeless and flat where Madeira is high, wet and green, with a single beach of pale golden sand running almost the entire nine kilometres of its southern coast. The sand is carbonate, derived from marine organisms rather than volcanic rock, and it is the reason the island has built an industry around psamotherapy - being buried in hot sand as a treatment for joint and bone complaints, offered under medical supervision at some establishments. Whether it works is a question for clinical literature and a doctor, not a travel page. The island is otherwise quiet: a small town at Vila Baleira, a house said to have been lived in by Columbus, golf, and volcanic hills at either end. Water is calm and warmer than Madeira's, and the whole place empties outside summer.

What you actually see

• The nine-kilometre beach - pale carbonate sand along the whole southern coast.
• The contrast - a low dry island beside Madeira's wet green mountains.
• The sand treatments - psamotherapy offered as a medical service on the island.
• Vila Baleira - the small town, with the house associated with Columbus.

When to go

June to September; the island is very quiet and many places close from November to March. Two days to a week. Ferry takes about two and a half hours from Funchal.

Honest expectations

Claims about the sand's therapeutic effect are traditional and commercial - read the clinical literature and ask a doctor rather than a hotel. Almost no shade anywhere. The ferry is rough in winter and cancelled in swell. Outside summer the island is close to shut.

Nearby

Madeira is across the channel; the island's volcanic peaks are at either end.