Madeira · Places

The places everyone asks about, with the conditions that decide the visit

Fanal without fog and Seixal at high tide are different places from their photographs. Each guide below covers the practical part, parking, fees, timing, and pairs it with live conditions, because on this island the weather where you are standing is never the whole story.

• Fanal Forest

  Fanal is a stand of centuries-old til laurels on the north rim of the Paúl da Serra plateau, at about 1,150 metres and only three kilometres from the sea. It is roughly a 40-minute…

• Seixal

  Seixal is the north coast at its most photogenic: a small village on a green headland, a black volcanic sand beach with a waterfall dropping straight onto it, natural lava pools yo…

• Porto Moniz

  Porto Moniz is where Madeira's northwest corner meets the open Atlantic, and its volcanic rock pools are the most famous swim on the island. The town sits low on a lava delta under…

• Chão da Ribeira

  Chão da Ribeira is a flat, farmed valley head above Seixal, ringed by laurisilva walls that funnel cloud in and out all day. Locals call it the Sanctuary. It is one of those places…

• Cabo Girão Skywalk

  Cabo Girão is one of the highest sea cliffs in Europe, and its glass-floored skywalk hangs you 580 metres above the fajãs, the tiny cultivated terraces on the shore below. It is a …

• Câmara de Lobos

  Câmara de Lobos is a working fishing town just west of Funchal, built around a natural bay full of brightly painted boats. Zarco named it in the 1420s after the monk seals, the lob…

• Caniçal

  Caniçal is the last town at Madeira's eastern tip, just beyond Machico, and the launch point for the island's most striking coastal walk. The green interior gives way here to a dry…

• Monte Cable Car

  Ride the glass cabins from the Funchal seafront up to Monte and the whole bay opens under your feet. The Teleférico do Funchal is the easy way to trade the harbour for hilltop gard…

• Eira do Serrado

  Stand at Eira do Serrado and the whole Curral das Freiras valley drops away below you, a ring of green peaks around the hidden village once called the valley of the nuns. It is one…

• Miradouro do Guindaste

  Walk out onto the Miradouro do Guindaste and there is nothing but ocean under the glass and steel. This suspended platform hangs off the north-east cliffs near Faial, so you step p…

• Cabo do Garajau

  The Cristo Rei statue stands on the Cabo do Garajau cliff with its arms open over the sea, the same pose as Rio and Lisbon, and the view from the headland runs the whole south coas…

• Miradouro dos Balcões

  The Balcões viewpoint is the big central-mountain panorama you barely have to work for. From Ribeiro Frio you follow the flat Levada dos Balcões, an easy, mostly level path good fo…