Ten reasons you really should hike in Madeira

Sao Vincente on Madeira's north coast

We’ve been home from our holiday nearly three weeks and already I’ve been checking out summer flights to Madeira. Sad really, but that’s how much we love this small volcanic island in the Atlantic Ocean.

Quite how Madeira acquired its popular image as a holiday destination for retirees, I don’t know, because, unless you stick to strolling along Funchal’s promenade, this island is seriously steep and demands enormous amounts of energetic effort to walk anywhere.

You're never far from an ocean view

Fortunately, steep is good as far as hiking is concerned; the higher you climb, the better those views!

There are plenty of hikers in Madeira, although the majority do seem to hail from northern Europe. In our experience, it’s relatively rare to bump into a fellow Brit away from the coastline and the most popular levadas.

Anyway, I’ve listed here, in no particular order, the reasons we’ll carry on visiting and hiking in Madeira as long as our legs can cope with the terrain.

The levadas

First publicised to an English-speaking audience by Sunflower Books, the extent and accessibility of these watercourses never fails to astound us. They were originally constructed for irrigation purposes, but now Madeira’s 2150 km of levadas are the island’s USP.

Levada walks often demand a head for heights

Unfortunately, some levadas do demand a serious head for heights, but most walkers gradually get used to the sheer drops and flimsy rails – the secret is, don’t look down! If you really are terrified of heights and prone to the occasional wobble, it’s probably better to stick to less vertiginous routes, like Levada Nova to the west and Levada da Serra above Funchal.

Levada walking is a seriously sociable pastime and the frequent brief stops to chat to other hikers is all part of the fun.  As well as being really popular with tourists and guided tours, they remain a busy thoroughfare for local people who use them to reach neighbouring settlements or, frequently, their terraced vegetable gardens.

Waterfalls

Refreshing or just freezing? 

It’s fair to say that Madeira’s waterfalls are not individually impressive. What is remarkable is the sheer number of them. You don’t need to venture far from the urban sprawl of Funchal to spot a waterfall. 

After rainfall, waterfalls cascade into the ocean from cliff-tops and no levada walk would be complete without the odd waterfall. Best of all, many have easy access pools at their base, perfect for a quick, albeit icy cold dip.

Paul de Serra

Where do I start? This starkly beautiful and unspoilt high plateau of Madeira lies at over 1500 metres above sea level so is prone to low-lying cloud and mist.

We first discovered this amazing place (which is not dissimilar to the Brecon Beacons) back in February 2009 when we hired a car for the first time.

Clouds rising over the Paul de Serra

We returned the following March when the weather was warmer and spent many a happy day wandering across this enchanting landscape, enjoying picnics in secluded spots adjacent to a gurgling stream. I'll never forget my terror at having to cross a rickety wooden bridge over a small waterfall to Harri’s unnerving cries of ‘Solid wood!’.

Elsewhere on the plateau, the rows of wind turbines create an eerie, alien landscape when the mists descend.

Mountains

The path between the high peaks is carved into the rock

It’s when scaling Madeira’s mountainous interior that the island’s volcanic origins become most obvious. 

Pico Ruivo is the highest peak, towering above sea level at 1,861 metres. The summit is accessible only by foot but don’t be fooled into thinking that it will be quiet up there on top of the world. 

Mountain music on Pico de Areeiro

When we arrived on nearby Pico de Areeiro in July to walk the tough 6km path which links the two summits, we were delighted to find South American musicians were entertaining the crowds.

Tunnels

Sometimes I think of Madeira as one massive advertisement for a career in engineering. Gravity-defying bridges scaling deep gorges, levadas hugging sheer cliffs… and then there are the tunnels.  Long gone are the days when it took half a day's driving on torturous roads to get from one end of the island to the other. Thanks to EU funding, a lot of dynamite and a decade of tunnel building, the time taken to travel between villages on the opposite sides of a mountain can now be measured in minutes and not hours.

Wikipedia cites the Cortado Tunnel, on Madeira’s north coast, as the longest motorway tunnel in Portugal. Built in 2004, it is 3,168 metres in length (excitingly, all the new tunnels in Madeira display their length as you enter).  The Ponta do Sol tunnel is within a whisker of this at 3,167 metres and the Encumeada Tunnel is 2,700 metres.

Ready for a long, damp, dripping levada tunnel

You can’t travel far, on wheels or feet, without encountering a stretch of tunnel – and some of the older structures aren’t particularly well maintained. When we stayed at Paul do Mar in 2009, we were shocked to discover one morning that there had been an overnight rock fall inside the only tunnel out of town. It was passable – just – but it was a timely reminder of the mountainous, and therefore dangerous, nature of Madeira's roads.

Ocean views

It’s almost impossible to avoid having a sea view on Madeira, unless you’re unfortunate enough to stay in a ground floor room in Funchal. Every road, stone flight of steps and pebbled path takes you closer to the sky, until eventually the villages and terraces spread out below look unreal.

Once, staring at the ocean from one of the highest miradouros, I fancied I could just make out the earth’s curvature on the horizon. It might have been cloud but I still like to think that I was witnessing something pretty amazing that day.

Looking down is the norm when hiking in Madeira's mountains

The weather

The fact that the majority of pavements in Madeiran towns are tiled speaks volumes for the climate. It rains, of course, and when it does those tiles make walking in anything other than flat shoes absolutely treacherous. Fortunately, torrential rain doesn't happen too often. Madeira has a mild sub-tropical climate with warm temperatures all the year round.

A heat haze settles over the Atlantic Ocean

The weather varies depending where you are on the island. The high central mountains help to keep Funchal on the south coast drier and sunnier than the northern parts of the island. Porto Moniz, for example, on the north-western point of the island seems to be permanently windy with a rough sea. Paul do Mar, on the south-western coast, is much hotter, although there are sea winds.

Food and drink

Many people associate the island with Madeira wine (which tastes like dry sherry), but for us, the only drink is Coral, the island’s own refreshing lager. 

Enjoying Coral in Funchal's old town area

For a long while, we thought it was the only lager sold on Madeira, but then we stumbled upon Super Bock, a similar-tasting Portuguese lager.  This discovery left us with a dilemma: remain loyal to our first love (Coral) or admit that, as with Coca Cola and Pepsi, there was little difference in taste and alternate. We like the idea that Coral is made locally so we’ve remained true to it.

We eat out far less now that it’s just Harri and me (the escalating cost of dining out aside, we’re usually far too exhausted at the end of a day’s hiking to get into our glad rags and go out hunting food!) but when we do, I tend to choose espada with bananas (Madeira’s unique black scabbard fish is deliciously fleshy and boneless) and if Harri isn’t joining me, he more often than not satisfies his carnivore's palate with espetada (beef kebabs).

Other local delicacies worth seeking out are honey cake (even more delicious served warm), banana liquour and garlic stonebread (actually stonebread without garlic is pretty yummy too).

Architecture

Madeira's architecture is generally pretty impressive with beautiful old churches and quintas (grand mansions) dotted around the island. Houses are built in the most inaccessible of spots and at far higher altitudes than we would consider in the UK.  

If there’s a road, or even a track, plus sufficient land (no worries if none of it’s flat), it seems there’s always someone  willing to build on it. Madeira's imaginative architects often make the most of the steep landscape and design multiple-storey houses that look deceptively small  from the front.

This house looks tiny from the front...

... but considerably bigger from another angle

On our recent trip, I couldn’t believe my eyes when we spotted a large JCB-type excavator sitting on a river-bed near Porto da Cruz. There was no obvious explanation for how it got there – the river sides were impossibly steep (and deep) and there was a low-lying bridge just few metres downstream.  There seemed no explanation, other than it had been air-lifted into place!

Insects – or lack of

I'm well-used to being a walking snack for our six-legged friends. Unfortunately, this apparent tastiness to an entire animal class has ruined many a holiday. I once returned from one week’s holiday on the Greek island of Cefalonia covered from head to toe in insect bite. On another occasion, I suffered a severe allergic reaction after every midge in the Elan Valley decided to nibble on my eyelids.

I love everything about summer except the annual onslaught of insects, all of whom seem intent on sampling my blood.

Vivid flowers but no problems with insects

I don’t know if it’s because it’s an island or because the temperature is never unbearably hot or humid, but I just don’t have the same problem in Madeira. 

It’s wonderful to be able to sit outdoors after dark and know that you’re not going to provide the evening’s blood fest for the insect population. 

The nature of vertiginous

ver·tig·i·nous  (adjective)

Causing vertigo, especially by being extremely high or steep.

Looking (a long way) down at Paul do Mer, Madeira

Who can forget the iconic shot of a terrified James Stewart dangling from one of San Francisco’s sky scrapers?

The opening scene of Vertigo, which last year toppled Citizen Kane from top rating in the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound once-a-decade poll, brilliantly illustrates the debilitating effect that a fear of heights can have.

I’m not that keen on high places myself. I've ‘frozen’ at the top of several tall structures, most memorably Barcelona’s still unfinished Sagrada Familia and, closer to home, walking over the top of Newport’s Transporter Bridge (the 242 foot construction usually opens to the public on Bank Holidays).

On a trip to New York, a year or two before 9/11, I quashed my fears and ventured onto the Empire State Building’s observation deck, 86 floors up.  I was terrified and, as a result, later refused to scale the nearby Twin Towers, an opportunity now lost forever.

A hairy section of coast path on Gower

But my real, gut-wrenching, terror in the skies moment was on a roller-coaster ride in Las Vegas . This toe-curling monster was positioned on the very top of the Stratosphere Hotel Tower, which ‘juts 1,149 feet into the Vegas skyline’ (their words).  It took two margaritas before I could step onto the ride and I did the whole two loops with my eyes shut and my mouth open (screaming). It clearly wasn’t terrifying enough for other adrenaline seekers though because, seven years ago, the Stratosphere demolished it to make space for several new rides with names like Insanity and X-scream. I guess that about sums it up.

Hiking in Wales isn't completely without its nerve-wracking moments either, although the official Wales Coast Path does direct walkers away from the hairiest sections. 

Despite all these terror-filled experiences, I don't recall any memorable encounters with the adjective ‘vertiginous’ until our first trip to Madeira in 2007. Browsing through our collection of new holiday walking guides, it wasn’t exactly reassuring to note the frequent scattering of phrases like ‘the way becomes very dangerous [sic], ‘there is a sheer drop’ , ‘Hold on: watch you don’t fall!’ and ‘Some people might find this stretch vertiginous’.

The Madeira archipelago is basically a chain of big underwater mountains, some which rise above the ocean. Although it measures only 35 miles by 22 miles, Madeira’s highest peak – Pico Ruivo – stands at 1861 metres, more than twice as high as Pen y Fan (886 metres) in the Brecon Beacons. The island also boasts one of the highest sea cliffs in Europe – the sheer drop at Cabo Girão is 570 metres and it’s pretty frightening to stand on the viewing platform looking down at terraced fields and the ocean beyond.

You need a head for heights on the route to Pico Ruivo 

What's even more fascinating is realising there’s more than twice as much Madeira lurking underneath the waves as above them. The cliffs around the island apparently extend to a depth of around 4,000 metres. That’s one big drop.

I share all this because, if you’re looking for a bad attack of vertigo, Madeira’s as good as place as any to head for.

Our first full day’s walking back in December 2007 was one of the most frightening experiences of my life. We'd chosen a walk from Walk Madeira! (by David and Ros Brawn) and the authors judged there to be a vertigo risk of 3 (high) and warned about ‘an unprotected drop’. Hidden half-way through the instructions, one of them had noted ‘the water channel had left the cliff leaving a body-sized slit to drop where I thought the cliff might be’.

Our Sunflower Landscapes book advised readers who considered themselves ‘experts’: ‘ You should manage all the walks easily, provided that you are used to very sheer unprotected drops’.   

It was all there in black and white, the subliminal message being ‘Keep Well Clear’. Except... the concept of danger is cultural and, hailing from a safety-conscious country like the UK, it was impossible to conceive of a dangerous path being accessible to the public. At home, Harri and frequently encounter footpaths that have been diverted/closed due to 'hazards' such as bowing walls or construction work on canal towpaths (experience has taught us to use our own discretion in such circumstances) . The authors of these Madeira guidebooks must be overly-cautious souls, I decided.

By early afternoon, I’d changed my opinion. Madeira was a hairy place to walk; if anything, these Madeira-philes had understated the perils.

A head for heights is necessary on the Levada dos Piornais

As I clung to a cliff overhang on the precipitous Levada dos Piornais, I froze with terror. There was absolutely nothing between the narrow path and a long tumble into the valley below except a rail with a human-sized gap at the bottom. One false move and I’d be doing a bungee jump without the elastic cord. To make things worse, Alanna (then just 12) was hiking with us and, with her youthful exuberance, was bouncing along and relishing the hair-raising experience.  I was expecting her to vanish over the precipice at any moment.

I was right to be concerned. Six months after our holiday, a 61-year-old Belgian woman died on the same levada; two weeks earlier, a woman fell to her death on the Ribeiro Frio – Portela walk. In January 2012, two elderly Danish tourists (women) were found dead below Levada dos Piornais.  

It’s sobering truth that too many hikers die every year, mostly while trekking on high mountain routes. In Madeira, it’s the popular levada paths that people should be treating with trepidation.

At first glance, they look surprisingly easy: level paths weaving their way around the contours of wooded valleys, often with official sign-posting and cafes/bars en route. On the face of it, levada walking offers the opportunity for even the most sedentary of tourists to get close to the island’s natural beauty.

But maybe that’s the 'root' of the problem. The Levada dos Piornais is tantalisingly close to Funchal, to the heavily populated hotel region.  Ribeiro Frio is one of the most visited valleys in Madeira: people take photographs, have something to eat and then look around for something else to do. Too often, they set off for a stroll without considering their fitness levels, footwear and head for heights.

Harri walks one of  Levada Furado's less vertiginous sections

On our latest trip, we witnessed two separate incidents on the vertiginous Levada Furado where the female hiker looked down, ‘froze’ and turned back. They were probably wise to do so as there were considerably more hair-raising sections facing them ahead.

Following the meandering course of a levada is probably one of the best ways to experience the beauty of inland Madeira. Just remember to choose your levada carefully if you don't like heights! 

One last thing, I stumbled upon this brilliantly entertaining blog entry highlighting some of the real (and imaginary) perils one holiday-maker encountered on his levada walk.