A hotel built more than a century and a half ago by a Madeiran who emigrated to New Zealand continues to be a tourist reference in the port city of Akaroa, a small town on the Banks Peninsula, in the Canterbury region, on the South Island of this country of Oceania.
The ‘Madeira Hotel’ was founded by António Rodrigues, who left at the age of 27 for the other side of the world in the company of his wife Adelaide. Both arrived in the city of Lyttleton, in 1858, aboard the ship Westminster, having later chosen to settle in Akaroa.
According to a review of the hotel’s history, which can be consulted in a mini exhibition in the original building, this hotel unit began to be born in 1870, when António Rodrigues, after working as a baker at the Commercial and Criterion Hotels, bought a property.
Two years later, the hotel opened. In 1907, the hotel changed hands, with the building having been expanded and adapted over time to adapt it to the most modern standards of service and comfort, but the original section remains well preserved.
