Savoy Hotel, Madeira - recycling the palm trees

The traditional old Savoy Hotel in Funchal Madeira is finally being knocked down.

For the last few years it has been planned, but work has now started and this stately old lady, just close to Reid's, is to be replaced by a super-swish new complex, due to open in 2013.

It will take most of the rest of this year for the famous pink building to be taken apart and for the new building to begin. Most of the contents, the marble, glass and other internal materials, as well as the antiques, the carpets, the paintings, the chandeliers and the wall hangings, will all be carefully removed and re-used. Madeira is very concerned with being green and recycling and the old hotels are no exception.

But I was particularly concerned about the old palm trees and other wonderful plants which adorned the front of the hotel, still glorious in spite of age and the increasingly fading rest of the complex.

The good news is that they will all be preserved, carefully wrapped up, nurtured and, in time, replanted either on the site of the new Savoy, or in the Savoy Gardens a little further from the sea.

This is a building site with a difference, as the huge and ancient landmarks are carefully wrapped and tied and stored to grace a very different kind of holiday resort for the 21st century.