Madeira, Portugal
Not a flop and drop holiday...but with all of the walking and clambering around, it needs to be done at times!
Madeira, is an autonomous region of Portugal, it sits in the Atlantic ocean 250 miles north of the Canaries and 600 miles south west of Lisbon. With minor exceptions, nothing here is built on a flat surface, even the airport runway is built on stilts, 180 of them apparently.. and 230 feet above the coastline!
The island is very hilly in places, so one has to be prepared to scale slopes much of the time whether walking to a restaurant or ascending to the highest point on the island!
We were staying in the Lido district, a 30 minute walk west from the capital, Funchal.
Our first day was taken with a coastal walk to Câmara de Lobos. The walk skirted natural rock pools adapted into bathing lidos, a tunnel, and then a walk across a basalt pebbled beach. Winston Churchill is revered in this town. He enjoyed painting here and perhaps also partook in the local speciality, poncha, a blend of lemon juice, honey and sugarcane spirit, 25 percent proof.
A cable car offering great views of Funchal took us up to the Monte Palace gardens, a multi level area of lush tropical vegetation with lakes full of koi... and various structures inspired by China and Japan.
Our first levada walk was to the 25 Fontes (25 natural springs, feeding into a lake) from Paul da Serra, the PR 6 trail. It was fairly straightforward, mainly downhill to start with, a gentle start to the hiking in Madeira.
There are over 2000km of levadas in Madeira. Levadas are irrigation channels moving water from the northern side of the island to the southern drier region, alongside which there are are various footpaths, coursing through beautiful landscapes. Some of these are precariously routed along cliff edges, others filing down through lush forests and 25km of them also descend through tunnels, so a head torch or flashlight (on your phone) is a necessity.
We then had the big walk/hike, PR1 from Pico Areeiro to the highest point on the island, Pico Ruivo at 1861m...only a 5000 step walk..that is, 5000 staircase steps up and down in a 8km walk overall. Astounding vistas. Not for the faint hearted, with some 'interesting' narrow cliff walks! However, if you like and partake in hiking, you should be fine. Much of the time we were above the clouds and luck was on our side with sunny weather...that said, it is a shady walk at times passing though the valleys and along cliff faces.
We took a bus to Baia d'Abra, on another mad, (not so) long and winding road. From there we took the PR8 Dragons Tail (Eastern archipelago) walk to Ponta do Furado. Very different aspects with magnificent coastal scenery on both sides as you navigate the hills, again, with some cliff edges here and there.
Then onto the PR9 walk from Queimadas to the waterfall of Caldeirão Verde, walking along the levada da Serra de São Jorge, with some even narrower paths with lofty views of the villages located below. This was a much lusher, greener walk.... and this time we were in the clouds rather than above them.
Another meandering bus ride took us up to Eira do Serrado... another breathtaking viewing point, with a hotel adjacent to it. From here we walked down the steep footpath to Curral das Freiras, Nuns valley. The walk was superb, the destination village is fairly basic, but it is a great target to set from on high. A very tough walk going the other way, I would imagine!
The dining here was rather fine too...the local speciality is black scabbardfish, a really evil looking critter from the dark depths of the ocean with bulging big eyes and sharp teeth. The sea surrounding Madeira is very deep and these fish live deep down in those waters. For some reason the scabbardfish is often served with bananas, which are abundant here.... with or without banana, the fish is very tasty (so are the bananas!). Poncha as mentioned above, is delightful.. another unusual drink here is nikita, a combination of ice cream and beer!
I will return...there are plenty of other walks and parts of this unique island be seen.