Unlike Madeira, this is a flat island with little vegetation.
Here everything revolves around the huge golden beach with 9 km of fine sand and warm water. It is the ideal place for those looking for quiet and for those who like to gaze at the ocean in its immensity …
According to legend, the name “Porto Santo” is due to the fact that it was a refuge for sailors trying to escape a violent storm. Porto Santo is of historical significance for Portugal as the first Portuguese discovery in the 15th century. Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira arrived here in 1418 and it was here that the great epic of the Portuguese Discoveries began. Among the names passing passed was also Christopher Columbus, the Genoese navigator who lived here after marrying a daughter of Bartolomeu Perestrelo the first Governor Captain of the island.
It would have been here, in a house situated in the centre of Baleira which is now Casa Museu Cristóvão Colombo, that the navigator prepared the journey of discovery of America.