Yeotown Madeira

Yeotown Madeira takes its guests on a Monday, in time for dinner, and lets them go on Saturday after lunch, twelve at most in an ordinary week. At the centre is a 17th-century farmhouse on five acres of hillside above Arco da Calheta, and the buildings are stepped along the slope around it, with railings made of branches and banks of blue and white hydrangeas below. Inside it is rattan and raffia, and from a balcony on the sea side the terraced hillside drops away to the roofs of the coast and the Atlantic. The rooms are named rather than numbered, Gratitude and Joy among them, and the sign by one door says Peace, which is a lot to promise before the first hike.

Recommended for anyone who would like a week in which somebody else has planned the exercise and the meals, and for families: children can join in, with the activities adapted on request. Movement comes first, on guided hikes through the valleys and old banana plantations and along the levadas. Then the cold water of the sea pools along the coast, while back on the estate the heated pool outside the main house takes the other side of the argument. Three massages come with the week. Meals are at The Yeotown Table, fed by the estate's permaculture garden, and the menu leaves out gluten, dairy, refined sugar, alcohol and coffee.