I had a heated exchange with some tourists last night who accused both me and the waiter in the restaurant we were in of being rude.

Now before anything, I’m a tourist, I was born in and grew up in the UK even though half of my family are Madeirense the fact I’m speaking English now proves that.

Last night on my yearly trip to Madeira with family, my girlfriend and I were having a meal in a restaurant in Funchal and next to us were a small group of tourists, North American accents I don’t know where they were from. One particular woman kept speaking to the waiter in very broken Spanish. The waiter initially just kept responding in English.

As the night went on she kept doing it, me and my girlfriend both looking at each other awkwardly while she did. Finally he said to her “Madam, I don’t speak Spanish” to which she responded playfully “Oh I made all this effort to use my knowledge and you don’t speak it!”. He then said “I don’t speak it because we don’t speak Spanish here, we speak Portuguese” to which the woman took huge offence and accused him of being rude and condescending. He simply responded “I’m not trying to be rude, I’m just saying Spanish isn’t spoken here” he then left.

The woman then looked around desperately and turned to me and said “Surely you think that’s rude? I’ve made an effort to learn a few basic phrases and I’m told I’m wrong”. I then looked on a bit confused and said “You’re speaking Spanish to him, it’s not spoken here?”

She then shouted “BUT I’M TRYING AT LEAST”

To which I said “You’re speaking the wrong language, Spanish is spoken in Spain and we’re in Portugal. You wouldn’t go to Italy and speak Greek”Someone else on her table then calmed her down. But she said she “was never returning to Madeira again”

Now I’ve seen this before where people speak Spanish in Madeira and they usually get corrected and 99% of the time they’re almost embarrassed and apologetic, but it’s just the fact that she literally couldn’t get into her head that she was wrong.

For attitudes like this, I think it seems to be increasing as time goes on. The island has become more accessible and has also made it more accessible to a different type of tourist. It wasn’t that long ago where the majority of people visiting greatly appreciated not only the location but the culture and the people as well. Recently, I’ve noticed this “new” type of tourist, usually the Instagram crowd that seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that people actually live and work and have normal lives in Madeira and when the picture perfect Instagram reel doesn’t live up to what they expect they get uncomfortable and almost hostile.