Archives: Regions

Madeira’s smaller neighbour is the island of Porto Santo.

Not quite as well known here in the UK as Madeira, Porto Santo is a short flight or a half-day ferry ride from Funchal.

The island’s 9km long beach is one of Portugal’s best kept secrets – it rarely ever gets busy as there just aren’t enough people on the island to ever fill the beach.

Accommodation is key to a great holiday and the island has its share of all-inclusive hotels. We tend to prefer smaller, Madeiran-style hotels with spacious balcony rooms, quiet terraces, and direct access to the beach where you can spend your days swimming and soaking up some rays.

Wherever you decide to stay, Vila Baleira is never far away – it’s a friendly little town, with a nice selection of café bars and restaurants.

The warm waters off Porto Santo’s east coast are perfect for paddleboarding and for aspiring windsurfers to take a first lesson.

The island’s Porto Santo Golfe course was designed by Seve Ballesteros, and each hole is unique, designed with Seve’s great care and knowledge of the game.

Porto Santo

Eastern Madeira is a dramatic landscape, where steep-sided river valleys and precipitous ravines run headlong in the Atlantic Ocean.

Eastern MadeiraIt’s easy to get lost in eastern Madeira – in fact, we positively encouraged it. Head inland from the popular suburbs of Canico and Garajau, and you enter a maze of rural roads which meander from one magnificent valley to the next, with endlessly beautiful views around every corner. Despite the obvious challenges presented by the landscape, the east of the island is dotted with small villages and hamlets, which help give scale to the immense views and stopping points for a unhurried lunch.

Three of the island’s most important levadas meet in the Parque Natural do Ribeiro Frio, making this the ideal spot to preserve and protect Madeira’s endemic plant life. A short walk down the Levada da Serra do Faial brings you to the miradouro at Balcoes – a wonderful spot overlooking the Ribeira da Metade valley.

Santana is the largest town in the north, famous for its charming Casas Tradicionais – the preserved, traditional thatch-and-lavastone buildings that were once common throughout the north-east of the island. The small coastal villages of Faial and Porto da Cruz nestle either side of the Penha d’Aguia, one of the island’s most-impressive natural monuments, and a popular swimming spots thanks to their sheltered natural bays.

At the southeastern tip of Madeira, the beautifully-barren Ponta de Sao Lourenco peninsula provides quite a contrast to the semi-tropical abundance of Ribeiro Frio, whilst the town of Machico, steeped in Madeira history, is a must-see if you’re looking for that authentic Madeiran experience.

Eastern Madeira

Funchal is Madeira’s capital city and the bustling, cultural centre of the island.

Funchal Downtown Funchal is a charming collision of traditional and modern architecture, connected by a maze of intersecting cobbled streets and calcada mosaic pavements. With around 150,000 inhabitants, its Portugal’s largest city outside of the mainland, and its name comes from the wild Fennel, ‘Funcho’ in Portuguese, which the first settlers found growing here in abundance.

Funchal The city sits on the more temperate south coast of the island, within a natural amphitheatre whose slopes rise gently from the seafront Avenida do Mar and the busy marina, up to the Monte Palace Tropical Gardens. The 586m climb up to the gardens is an easy fifteen minutes, thanks to the Teleferico cable car, whilst the descent is a wild ride on a Carro de Cesto – the famous wicker toboggans which slide down the polished tarmac into Livremento.

FunchalThe pedestrianised Avenida da Arriaga leads you through the city’s main shopping district, via the historic Se Catedral do Funchal to the Mercado dos Lavradores farmers’ market – the foodie centre of the city. As a mid-Atlantic Island, seafood dominates most Madeiran menus, but the island’s sub-tropical climate also allows local farmers to grow a diverse range of exotic fruits and vegetables.

Funchal The once-dilapidated Zona Velha Old Town district is now home to a huge range of restaurants and café bars, and in the evenings the Rua de Santa Maria vanishes under restaurant parasols and human traffic, transformed into a mile-long frenetic alfresco restaurant. The Old Town’s Portas Abertas art project provides a feast for the eyes – the doors, facades and frontages of the Zona’s previously derelict buildings have been repurposed by local painters, sculptors and photographers, creating a unique open-air art gallery.

Funchal

Jagged, imposing seacliffs and the wild, restless Atlantic Ocean dominate the landscape of Northwest Madeira. 

Northwest MadeiraFrom the terraced vineyards of the Sao Vicente river valley, via the photogenic Cascata Veu da Noiva waterfall, to the seawater swimming pools of Porto Moniz: Madeira’s remote north west has some of the islands most-remote and impressive natural landmarks. These monolithic rockfaces, precipices and promontories have been at the mercy of sea for five million years – the human population of the north for slightly less time, but they’re still a hardy bunch who always offer visitors a warm welcome.

Madeira’s most westerly point is marked by the lighthouse at Ponta do Pargo. Constructed in 1922, the lighthouse is Portugal’s highest – standing on the 300m high Ponta da Vigia cliffs, its elevated west-facing lamp is visible up to 50km away. The 140m high Cascata da Garganta Funda waterfall is nearby and is at its most impressive after a few days of winter rain – if you’re visiting in the dry summer, it’s still an impressing gorge.

The remote seafront village of Porto Moniz is as far north and west as you can go on Madeira. The Complexo Balnear de Porto Moniz is one of the most-popular swimming spots on the island, and the nearby coastline is dotted with natural rock pools and wild swimming spots. The north coast drive from Porto Moniz to Sao Vicent, via the Ribeira da Janela and the maritime village of Seixal is truly special.

The spectacular high pass which dissects the island in two – from Sao Vicente up to the summits of Pico do Cedro and Pico da Encumeada – brings you onto the high Paul de Serra plain. It’s quite a contrast to the rest of Madeira: a broad, flat expanse of scrubland sitting at 1500m, which is often mooted as a potential location for a new airport. However, it’s also can be quite a desolate part of the island, and when the cloud and mist drops you could be forgiven for mistaking the Serra for the highlands of Scotland.

It’s the start point for many of the more-popular walks on the island – the famous Levada das 25 Fontes walk leads you down from the Paul de Serra, via the 25 Fontes Levada to the beautiful green lagoon of the same name, where 25 streams fall from a 30m high cliff to form a natural pool.

 

 

Southwest Madeira holds the island’s monopoly on pretty seafront villages

There’s a pleaseant and appealing disjointedness to Southwest Madeira. Each village sits in its own secluded natural harbour with its own little microclimate – each in its own little world. There’s something of a Cornish-feel to places like Ponta do Sol and Madalena do Mar, and their attractively colourful buildings, pebble beaches and laid-back feel make them popular weekend destinations for the residents of Funchal.

Southwest Madeira’s largest town is Calheta. A Funchal in miniature, Calheta’s small and friendly marina is a nice alternative to the much larger marina in the capital, particularly if you enjoy sailing. Many of our favourite self-catering villas are nearby, and including a hire car makes the town a great base from which to explore the island.

Further west, you’ll come the tiny seafront hamlets of Jardim do Mar and Paul do Mar. Jardim has three popular pebble beaches – Portinho, Enseada at Ponta Jardim which are particularly popular with hardcore surfers. Paul do Mar is barely two cobbled-streets wide, and you could be forgiven for thinking you were lost in the narrow backstreets of an Italian city. Find the harbour and you’ll find the some of the best fish restaurants on Madeira – the type of places where you can eat like the locals, with the locals.

If you’re hoping to soak-up local Madeiran culture during your stay on the island, one of the best regions to head for is Central Madeira.

Central Madeira Central Madeira is the most populous region on the island outside of Funchal, and the bustling coastal towns like Camara de Lobos and Ribeira Brava are great places to get a feel for the day-to-day life of the island. This is Funchal’s commuter belt but it’s not easy terrain: the steep lombas (volcanic ridges) and fajas (flat coastal plains) create an incredibly undulating landscape. Out of necessity, homes are built on terraces cut into the steep-sided lombas – these very traditional-style houses seem to defy gravity: testament to the tried-and-tested building techniques that began with the very first settlers almost 600 years ago.

Central MadeiraIt’s easy to escape the hustle-and-bustle of town by heading inland to the Curral das Freiras: the secluded valley where the nuns of the Convent of Santa Clara took refuge from rampaging pirates in the 16th century. Before the arrival of the tarmac road, the meandering Nun’s Trail was the only access into the valley. This narrow path takes you from the spectacular viewpoint at Eira do Serrado, precariously traversing the steep sided valley. The modern-day Serrado tunnel is the easy 21st century route down into the village 600m below. The village is completed hidden from the outside world with steep mountains on all sides. Cherries and chestnuts are the main crops grown on the terraces that you’ll see lining the steep sides of the valley. Cherries are used in the production of Ginja, a sweet, fortified wine, whilst the famous Bolo de Castanha cake combines the chestnuts with sugar and vanilla and is served in most café bars in the village.

Central Madeira A new, high mountain pass connects Eira do Serrado to one of the island’s highest peaks: Pico do Arieiro (1816m). The trail from Arieiro to Madeira’s high summit Pico Ruivo (1861m) is one of Portugal’s great walking challenges.

Self-Guided Walking

Our customers know that Feefo reviews are the real deal. We trust Feefo to independently collect reviews from our customers

Feefo believe that only authentic reviews are worth collecting: genuine feedback that has been matched to a holiday with us