History of Ponta do sol Madeira island

Ponta do Sol ", stems from his geographical situation and the existence of a rounded shape on a rock, with veins branched and which resembles the sun: "a point where you see the sun, from birth until it gets".

The first settlers settled-if at Ponta do Sol in mid-1440 and due to its port and fertile land, has progressed so rapidly that even the parish was established in the third quarter of the fifteenth century. The kernel from which began the parish belonged to Rodriguez Enes, "the Lame", however, by its rapid and extensive development, attracted a considerable number of settlers from the mainland and even from abroad, that there had many lands of allotment, some of which stem from the major houses that have linked their headquarters in this city and remained till the present day.

At the foundation of economic prosperity achieved, was that soil fertility has always been used for so-called rich crops, and at the time of colonization, one of the most active centers of agricultural production, especially sugar cane, while the cultivation of cereals, namely, wheat, represent a significant income. To progress this village, and as has happened everywhere south of the island, which contributed, in addition to the Portuguese foreign elements, namely, English, Scandinavian, African and Moorish.

In the cultural and built heritage of the parish stress, the Church of invocation to Our Lady of Light, which was restored in the eighteenth century and still retains within it a small chapel of the fifteenth century, built by the early settlers of the parish in 1446: still, the chapel of the Holy Spirit, the sixteenth century, apart from other assets of equal value; also highlight the manors of Esmeraldas and Zinos.

How Attraction is to highlight the site of Paul da Serra, the home of John Dos Passos and the area of the pier.