The Principality of the Pontinha - the world's smallest state?

Looking down from the hotel towards the harbour, the new harbour wall can be seen to join with an outcrop of rock, where steps climb to a viewpoint at the top. By lunchtime the sunshine of morning had been lost to cloud, so after a bite to eat we decided to take a stroll down the hill to take a look.

At the bottom of the staircase, two locals were guarding the entrance, charging one euro admission to walk to the top. For my shiny euro coin, I was given a leaflet explaining that I had just met His Excellency Prince D. Renato Barros, sovereign leader of the historic island of Pontinha, which had been ceded from Portugal in December 2007. Right.

The rock had been landed on in July 1419 by two captains belonging to a sea expedition by Prince Henry the Navigator, one of the great Portuguese explorers of the fifteenth century. A fort called Sao Jose was built on the rock, which was separated from the main island of Madeira at that time, but over the years as Madeira and Funchal developed, the rock and fort simply became part of the harbour wall.

In 1903, King D. Carlos I of Portugal supposedly signed a Regal Letter stating the territory of the Principality of the Pontinha shall be sovereign. The original letter is apparently kept in the Tower of London (it wasn't on display when we visited the Tower a couple of years ago, but then again we weren't exactly looking for it), and this forms the basis of the claims of the current Prince (who also claims to be a descendant of the King who signed the letter).

The rock is less than 200 sq m in area, and if recognised by the United Nations would be the smallest sovereign state in the world.

Whether you believe all this or not, it's a great story and for imagination alone is well worth the euro coin I paid towards its maintenance. Co-incidentally, whilst looking out to sea from the viewpoint, a replica ship from Henry the Navigator's day, taking tourists back from a morning sail, was heading back towards Funchal and the harbour.