Madeira highlights connected by white-knuckle driving

Madeira is stunning: volcanic mountain lookouts, lacy waterfalls, wicker toboggan rides, natural rock pools, and – here’s a concept – mountain levada hikes that are flat! But connecting these highlights was the white-knuckle, gripping experience of driving.

Driving, we discovered, is a two-person job on this Portuguese island just off the coast of Morocco: one confident, steely-nerved driver (Bill) to shift gears up and down the steep winding narrow switchback roads, plus a navigator (me) with one eye glued to Google Maps and another on the tunnels, roundabouts, stray sheep, and pedestrians on roads with no shoulders. (A third eye could have helped watch for vehicles at blind corners.)  

Sample navigator comment: “At the roundabout, you’ll exit at 10 o’clock, then take an immediate left (whoa, watch that car backing out!), around a hairpin turn (don’t hit that lady with the basket on her head!), and then into a tunnel.”

Our March week on Madeira was not enough time to take in all the glorious sights and activities, but we still managed to appreciate many highlights, especially the levada hikes. Here’s what we learned about driving between all these sights. 

Volcanic mountains, little flat land

Madeira is a volcanic island, with steep cliffs and mountainsides falling straight down to the sea. Which we knew from seeing photos before we went. But there’s nothing like driving up and over those mountains to fully appreciate the topography and geology. There’s very little flat land – certainly not enough for an airport runway. So your first potentially hair-raising transportation experience may be your landing. The runway is tucked in beside the ocean, with part of it like a bridge, supported by 180 enormous pillars. The main highway actually goes under the runway. Crazy! On windy days, planes approach crab-like from the side or sometimes can’t land at all. Fortunately, we arrived on a calm, sunny day. We found out later it’s one of the most dangerous airports in the world and pilots must receive extra training to land there!

Driving adventures begin…

After picking up our rental car, we headed for Funchal – the main city of about 106,000 souls crammed into an amphitheatre-shaped bowl of land facing the ocean. Funchal highway drivers go fast. On and off ramps are incredibly short, given the dearth of flat land. Once we exited, Google took us down steep streets that were so narrow we had to pull in the mirrors to squeeze between scratched walls and parked cars. Then we hit a construction detour and had to find our own way through the narrow maze.

“Take the next right,” I said. But then I realized we couldn’t because that street was 50 metres below us. Lesson: zoom in tightly on Google Maps to see where you can actually make turns.

We finally got to the Madeira Story Centre (a museum), wheeled into a nearby parking garage, parked and breathed huge sighs of relief. Who needs bungee jumping when you can simply drive in Madeira?

Madeira Story Centre and walking tour

The fort helped fend off pirate attacks. The cathedral ceiling is made with endemic Madeiran wood. And Cristiano Ronaldo’s statue gets worn in curious spots…

We pieced the island’s geology, history and development together during a visit to the Madeira Story Centre and then a walking tour. Moorish scholars and the Romans Pliny and Ptolemy all knew about the uninhabited volcanic island, but their writings didn’t make it to Portugal until 1406. In 1420, Prince Henry the Navigator sent three Portuguese explorers to investigate the swirl of clouds that superstitious crew members thought were vapours from the entrance to hell. Instead, they found Madeira and settlement commenced.

Colonists were soon growing wheat, sugarcane, grapes, and tropical fruits brought from elsewhere. Today’s economy is based on tourism but, driving around, it’s easy to see the bananas, sugarcane and grapes still growing in terraced fields down the mountainsides.

Later, we met up with Eduardo at the Cristiano Ronaldo statue on the waterfront for the excellent Guru Walk tour. He fed us interesting bits of Madeira trivia. For example:

• ‘Ronaldo’ is not the famous football (soccer) star’s last name. His father admired former U.S. president Ronald Reagan and gave his son the middle name Ronaldo when he was born in Funchal. Ronaldo’s full name is Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro. When you go to Madeira, be sure to say he’s the best football player ever.
• In 1420, the island was claimed by Portuguese explorer João Gonçalves Zarco, who gets the big statue, but he was helped by Tristão Vaz Teixeira and Bartolomeu Perestrello.
• Christopher Columbus arrived on Madeira in 1478 as a sugar merchant, when it was called ‘white gold,’ and stayed for several years after marrying Perestrello’s daughter. Columbus studied Atlantic navigation there before his famous 1492 ‘discovery’ of the New World.
• The Funchal flag features five cones (blocks) of sugar – that’s how important sugarcane was to the economy, before Brazil took over the market.
• ‘Funchal’ means ‘fennel,’ which was so abundant the city was named for it. ‘Madeira’ means ‘wood,’ which also grew in abundance. “We’re not so original with names,” said Eduardo.

He talked about pirates and wars; took us past the farmers’ market, the cathedral, the fort; and made recommendations for foods and drinks to try. (Stay tuned for a future story about Madeira food and drink.) We ended the tour back at the waterfront, where Eduardo shared tastings of sugarcane cookies and Madeira’s famous fortified wine.

Cable car to Monte Palace Gardens

The cable car from Funchal takes you up the mountain to the Monte Palace Gardens.

Cable cars scattered about the island allow farmers to get their produce up the mountain from oceanside farms with no road access. But the cable car ride – in six-person gondolas – from Funchal up the mountain to Monte is meant for tourists. We enjoyed spectacular views over the city and harbour.

Right next to the cable car station in Monte, we entered the lovely Monte Palace Gardens. Winding paths led us past tile mosaics illustrating Portugal’s history and through different garden features, including the Chinese gardens, orchid gardens, rhododendrons, and thousand-year-old olive trees. Waterfalls and streams and stepping stones and bridges. Flamingos and wood ducks and turtles enjoyed the ponds. What a serene oasis.

Toboggan ride!

Monte toboggans can go up to 30 kilometres per hour!

To get back down from Monte to Funchal, we rode wicker toboggans! Yes, that’s a thing. Back in the day, rich people living up the mountain used to ride them to quickly get to Funchal. CNN billed it as one of the best commutes in the world.

The toboggans hold two people and have wooden runners. Two men dressed in white with straw boater hats ride on the back runners, like a dog sled, and steer and brake with their feet.

“How often do you have to get new shoes?” I asked.

“We replace just the rubber sole, about once a week,” replied one of our carreiros, before steering us around a corner.

We rode for two kilometres down steep streets that also had traffic on them (although they’re at least one-way streets). At one point, we saw smoke curling up from the runners of the toboggan ahead of us. Crazy! We grinned and laughed the whole way down; it wasn’t scary at all.

See our video highlights of Madeira: toboggan ride, rock pools, folk dancing, and levada waterfall hike.

Tunnels

Tunnels are ubiquitous. All the highways and major roads go through tunnels ranging from 100 metres to three kilometres long. They have curves, go up and down steeply, and one in Funchal even has on and off ramps right in the tunnel.

In long tunnels, Google Maps loses its mind and has you floating over the ocean. Then suddenly you emerge from the tunnel right at a roundabout and must know which exit to take. I learned to scroll ahead and make sure I knew which exit to take while waiting for the blue dot to find us.

Despite the challenges, I loved the tunnels – the view isn’t so great, but you can’t plunge off the side.

Natural rock pools

Several viewpoints along the hairpin turns gave stunning views of Porto Moniz and its natural rock swimming pools.

If ever you need proof that Madeira is a volcanic island, the natural rock swimming pools in Porto Moniz are it. Paved paths amongst the pools let you get up close and personal with the porous, sharp volcanic stone. We wandered about, marvelling at the beauty. The sea was a sapphire blanket fringed with turquoise and lacy white waves that bashed the coast below the pools, separated in places by human-built walls.

Fanal Forest

The Fanal Forest is not dense, but rather gnarly old laurel trees scattered across rolling hills with plenty of cows willing to pose for photos.

We missed the mist. The gnarly old laurel trees, blown and grown sideways, are often enveloped in mist in the mornings, making the area feel eerie and mystical. But even on a clear morning, the Fanal Forest proved to be a magical, peaceful spot – and probably the flattest place on Madeira. Wandering amongst the twisted trees, we discovered they carry lichen, moss, mushrooms and ferns on their rugged bark. The colours seemed saturated even though the sun shone brightly. When taking photos, we tried to take advantage of shadows and lens flares instead of mist. Birds twittered and resident cows kept the grass well shorn. We circled a small caldera that’s now a pond where the cows drink and frogs excitedly croaked in a throaty chorus. I think it was mating season. 

Road rescues

As we left the Ponto do Pargo lighthouse, we saw two young women with huge backpacks hiking up the incline towards the village. They stuck out their thumbs.

“Should we stop?” asked Bill. We never stop for hitchhikers. But that day, we impulsively agreed to pick them up. As we slowed down, they literally jumped for joy and clapped their hands – not generally the sign of axe-murderers. From Germany, they were grateful for the ride to their hostel. And we were happy to have helped them conquer that hill.

Later, we recognized a young couple who had been behind us on the levada hike; they were walking down the steep switchback road with no shoulders. A dangerous spot. We slowed down and offered them a ride. They climbed in the car gratefully. From Czech Republic, they had missed the last bus into town.

“You are good people,” said the young man, as we dropped them off. Good deed for the day: done.

Levada do Moinho-Novo hike

The Levada do Novo, carved right into the cliff behind the waterfall, is newer and had fewer guardrails than the older Levada do Moinho. The blue arrow points to where farmers divert water from the levada into their terraced fields.

Levada hikes topped my favourites list for Madeira, especially the nine-kilometre Moinho-Novo loop.

I love the concept of levada hikes: a mountain hike that’s flat! Madeirans built levadas – small irrigation channels – to bring water from the island’s wet north side to the drier south side.  Hundreds of kilometres of levadas are still used. And hikers are welcome to trek along the maintenance paths beside them, leading to spectacular views of waterfalls and mountainsides. Warning: sometimes there’s a bit of “up” to get to the levada, and sometimes the thin wire guardrails along steep cliffs are missing. But the hikes we did were safe and easy (assuming you don’t have vertigo).

The Levada do Moinho hike cruised along a mountainside and into a steep-sided gorge. Halfway along, we had views of a waterfall, but this wasn’t the main event. We hiked up a staircase for a few breath-stealing minutes to reach the Levada do Novo, a newer levada that runs parallel to Moinho but about 100 metres higher. After a few minutes along Novo, we reached the highlight – a horseshoe shaped gorge with a waterfall spilling over the levada. The levadeiros (men who built them) carved the levada and trail right into the cliff. We followed the trail behind the waterfall. Spectacular! We lingered to take photos, then got out our flashlights for a 200-metre trek through a tunnel. Yes, even the hikes here have tunnels!  

Levada Água d’Alto Waterfall hike

The Levada Água d’Alto is another beautiful levada hike – this one just three kilometres out and back – to one of the highest waterfalls on Madeira. The trail is not used much and was overgrown in spots but still easy to follow. Some local boys were swimming in the pool at its base, but we hadn’t brought our bathing suits. We pivoted in an arc to see all the smaller waterfalls plunging down through ferns on both sides of the main waterfall.

The only tricky part was finding the trailhead to get started. Google Maps is wrong. We drove past the wrong spot several times – and that required the white-knuckle talent of turning the car around on a hairpin turn. Finally we opened the MapsMe app and found the trailhead and the entire trail marked clearly. MapsMe is much better than Google Maps for finding these out-of-the-way places and it can be used off-line.

(The Journey Era blog has an excellent guide to Madeira’s levada hikes. Take a look, if only for the gorgeous photos.)

Dragon’s Tail hike

The trail along Ponta de São Lourenço – popularly called the Dragon’s Tail – is more onerous than a levada hike but still quite doable, including cobblestone paths at the start, but mostly dirt and stone trails.

Our last full day began with hiking on Ponta de São Lourenço – a peninsula and islands shaped like a scaly dragon’s tail at the east end of Madeira. The popular seven-kilometre out-and-back trail winds up and down and around incredible rock formations created by two volcanoes. Cliffs where erosion had exposed the underlying red, yellow and black rock were stunning. We paused in several places to marvel at the old lava tubes – vertical stripes erupting upwards through the stony layers. Fascinating. Geologists would go gaga here. We saw small hexagonal basalt formations beside the trail, and huge formations on cliffs. Spring wildflowers scattered themselves across the dry land. A fish farm with eight pens for raising dorado bobbed in the bay that we circled around.

Bica da Cana viewpoint

Along with tunnels, miradouros [viewpoints] are everywhere and they cemented our understanding of why the driving is so exciting.

Many places are lauded as perfect spots for sunrise or sunset, especially when the clouds and mist roll between the mountain peaks. However, we just couldn’t get up early for sunrise and didn’t fancy driving the mountain roads after dark. Fortunately, the Bica da Cana viewpoint is still gorgeous at noon – looking down upon a deep valley that runs between São Vicente on the north side of the island, and Ribeira Brava on the south side. Straight across, we could see Madeira’s tallest peaks: Pico Ruivo, Pico dos Torres and Pico Arieiro, where we went on our last day.

Then we drove down into that valley. I have to say that, even with all the steep hairpin turns, Madeira has good guardrails that made me feel braver. They’re mostly concrete walls that look like crenellations on a castle wall, plus some concrete posts and metal rails. Of course, many were bashed in, twisted and dented… 

Pico do Arieiro viewpoint

Our last morning on Madeira, we drove the long and winding road up to Pico do Arieiro summit – the third-highest peak, behind Pico Ruivo (the highest) and Pico das Torres (second-highest). Pico do Arieiro is recommended for sunrise, and it truly would have been better then, just to avoid dodging the busloads of seniors that shared with us mid-morning. The views, however, were worth it.

Rows upon rows of mountains receded, getting lighter in the distance. I watched hikers heading off for the scary Pico do Arieiro to Pico Ruivo trek along a narrow ridgeline with cliffs falling away on both sides. I got sweaty palms just looking at them. When Bill said he’d hike that trail, I stared at him in incredulity. “Not with me, you won’t!”

Driving adventure ends

“If you came to Madeira and didn’t want to drive, how would you get around?” We discussed the options while dodging sheep as we headed to the airport after Arieiro.

• Bicycle: Nope. We love cycling, but would feel unsafe on Madeira.
• Tour companies: We saw dozens of jeep tours, small and large van tours, and bus tours going to the popular sights such as the Dragon’s Tail trailhead, Fanal Forest, Pico do Arieiro lookout, and Porto Moniz. Well worth looking into.
• Taxi tours: A car rental guy told us you can ask taxi drivers at the Madeira airport to take the long way to your accommodation, past whatever sights you want to visit. Negotiate a price up front. Presumably you could do the same from Funchal or any other major town. We saw many taxi drivers hanging out at trailheads, waiting to pick up their customers.
• Public buses: Even the narrowest roads at the tops of mountain villages had frequent bus stops along them, and we dodged many buses along those roads. However, you must learn the schedule and pay attention to last-run times so you don’t end up like our Czech friends.

If all this fails and you find yourself trudging up or down steep mountain roads, don’t worry – we’d pick you up. We understand.

We visited Madeira in March 2023. Find out where we are right now by visiting our ‘Where’s Kathryn?’ page.