New Year at sea, and the fireworks over Funchal

Funchal, the capital of Madeira, sits in a natural amphitheatre: a crescent of steep hillside rising from the harbour, covered in white houses, terraces and gardens. At midnight on New Year's Eve, fireworks go up from dozens of points around that bowl at once, so that the whole slope from the waterfront to the hills seems to catch light. It is one of the largest displays anywhere. In 2006 it was recognised as the largest firework display in the world, and it has stayed famous since.

The town's shape means that the place to watch it from is the sea. Ships of all sizes gather in the bay for the night, their decks lined with passengers, and a cruise that times its call for New Year's Eve gives you a front-row seat on the water.

Madeira, which is more than a night

Madeira is a Portuguese island, far out in the Atlantic off the coast of Morocco, and it has been famous for its mild winters for as long as British travellers have been going there. It is mountainous, green and steep. Its sides are cut by the levadas, narrow irrigation channels carrying water from the wet north of the island to the drier south, with paths beside them that make some of the best walking in Europe. The fortified wine named after the island has been made there for centuries, and Funchal's wine lodges are a good place to learn the difference between a sercial and a malmsey.

At Christmas and New Year, Funchal is lit up from end to end, with lights along the streets and the waterfront. December is mild, if sometimes showery. Walking about the town in a light jacket in midwinter is one of the quieter pleasures of the trip.

The Canaries, and the way there

The cruises that time their call for Funchal's New Year combine it with the Canary Islands, Spain's subtropical archipelago off the coast of Africa, which are as reliable for winter sun as anywhere in reach of Europe by sea. Fred. Olsen's Canary Islands Christmas and Funchal Fireworks, fourteen nights from Southampton, calls at Lanzarote and Gran Canaria. It also calls at Tenerife, below the volcano of Mount Teide, Spain's highest mountain, and La Gomera, where Columbus took on water before his first crossing in 1492. It also visits Funchal and Lisbon.

Fred. Olsen's Canaries Christmas and Funchal Fireworks, fifteen nights from Southampton, follows a similar pattern, with Tenerife, La Palma and Gran Canaria, Funchal and Lisbon.

The other calls give the voyage its variety. Tenerife is dominated by Mount Teide, at 3,715 metres the highest mountain in Spain, whose national park of lava fields and volcanic cones is a World Heritage Site, and often snow-capped in midwinter. Lanzarote is dark and volcanic too, its vineyards planted in hollows in the black ash. Lisbon, on the way, is a city of hills and trams, rebuilt on a grand plan after the great earthquake of 1755, with the Manueline monastery of Jerónimos and the Tower of Belém at the mouth of the Tagus marking the age of Portuguese exploration.

The honest caveat is the Bay of Biscay. In December and January the crossing to and from the Atlantic islands can be rough, and the first and last days of the voyage may be spent at sea in lively conditions. That is part of the price of a sea voyage south in winter, and worth knowing if you are prone to seasickness.

A different New Year route

For those who would rather start from London Tilbury, Ambassador's Christmas and New Year Voyage to the Canaries and Morocco, sixteen nights, takes a different line. It calls at Gibraltar and at Lanzarote, Tenerife, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura in the Canaries, Casablanca on the Moroccan coast, and Vigo, the port for Santiago de Compostela. Funchal is not among its listed calls, so it is the choice for those who prefer a Moroccan city and an extra Canary island to the Funchal fireworks.

For those who do want the fireworks, it is hard to think of a better way to see in the New Year than on deck, in the warm night air, with a whole town lit up around you.