Today was my last full day on Madeira and I decided to explore Funchal. Although I had been staying there a few days already, I had been busy with all-day trips outside of the city and had not ventured out of the old quarter, where my flat was located. I started with taking the cable car to Monte, a suburb high up in the mountains behind the city, to visit the Monte Palace Gardens, one of Madeira’s main tourist attractions. I bought a combination ticket for cable car and “gardens” at the ticket office and enjoyed interesting views over the city on the long ride up.

When I got to the top, I found that my combination ticket was not for the Monte Palace Gardens, whose entrance was right next to the cable car station, but for the official city Botanical Gardens.  To reach the latter required me to take another cable car going half-way back down the mountain.  My annoyance quickly passed as I explored a series of very interesting displays of Madeira’s plant life and enjoyed coffee and cake on a terrace looking out over Funchal to the sea. I particularly enjoyed the huge cacti and the dragon trees. An added bonus was that I had the place almost entirely to myself.

From the Botanical Gardens, I returned to the centre of Funchal to explore the city.  It had a nice laid-back feeling, many old buildings and very few tourists.  There were no real “must visit” places that would feature in lists of “1000 things to see before you die”, but the city centre was pretty and a pleasant place just to stroll around for a few hours. There were lots of small shops, gardens, and public squares.  

My route took in a museum set in the house of Zarco, the city founder, and the cathedral.  It ended with Madeira wine tasting at Blandy’s wine merchants, where I discovered that in addition to the sweet Madeira that is popular in the UK, there were also semi-dry and dry varieties.  Even the dry one tasted sweet to me, just less so than the others.  But I like Madeira wine, so it was a great way to end my stroll.

The evening I had dinner in the open air at the restaurant in the old fort directly in front of my house.  The food and service were excellent. I took the option of the wine set. In London this would involve precisely measured rations of each wine, but here the staff filled up my glasses whenever they were half full.  As the evening progressed, a bright full moon rose over the battlements of the fort and bathed the courtyard in soft light.  The evening was perfect and helped me forget for a moment that I had to return to London’s rain and Covid the next day.

I left Madeira after nearly two weeks with a desire to come back.  There were some things I hadn’t managed to do during my visit – like the walk on my first day that got rained off, or the Monte Palace Gardens.  But most of all it would be nice to stay in Funchal, chill out in the sun and  do some swimming or diving  whilst everyone back home is shivering with the onset of winter.

Today my alarm woke me at 06.45. I planned to do the famous walk between Pico do Arierio and Pico Ruivo, high in the mountains, and the guidebook said you should start early to avoid clouds.   However, when I got up and went out on the terrace, the weather was cloudy even at sea-level in Funchal. I thought that the mountains would be even worse and sat down to think of a plan B for the day, annoyed at having woken up so early for nothing.  Dawn was breaking, and I remembered the website with webcams all around Madeira showing the weather that had been so useful on my first day on Madeira.  Maybe I could find a sunny place to visit for the morning. Out of 20 webcams, there was one showing a brilliant sunrise, above a layer of thick cloud………Pico do Ariero. My original plan was still good, since the top of the mountains rose well above the clouds.  I picked up all the stuff I had packed the night before and set off in my car up some very steep hills.  Soon I was engulfed in thick grey cloud, but as I went further and further up, I felt  the top of the cloud lightening, and then suddenly the sky was a brilliant clear blue with a bright white layer of cloud below me.  I had arrived at a radar station that marked the start of my walk. 

I stopped at the radar station to take my first photographs of the beautiful cloud- and mountain-scape. 

The path then set off downhill along the side of a mountain and the along a sharp crest, with steep drops on either side.

Fortunately, the path was well maintained, with guide rails.  The path ran to a couple of “miradouros” before dropping steeply down the mountain, and then running level through several tunnels. 

The first seemed natural, the others had been bored through the rock. They were long and dark, requiring me to use the light on my phone to see where I was going.  In the stretches between tunnels, I was treated to a series of amazing views.  Brilliant sunshine, tall mountains, and bright white cloud drifting in from the sea.

Next the path went steeply up a series of long metal ladders, then came a slightly flatter section running through a forest of dead grey trees.  With the wisps of clouds blowing in from the valley, and the trees twisted, agonized shapes, it felt like an enchanted forest from a fairy tale. 

The path continued still further up, and with the strong sunshine I was soon sweating.  Finally, I reached the summit of Pico Ruivo and stopped to take photographs and admire the views.  I could see the starting point for my walk just over on the neighbouring mountain range. Given the effort of getting here, it looked disappointingly close as the crow flies, but the steep drop between the two points bore witness to the difficulty of the path. 

I stopped to have my packed sandwiches and drink some water, and then set off on the return trip.  The clouds were now thicker and reaching higher up the mountain.  At the point where the clear sky stopped and the clouds began, I saw a faint rainbow, before the sun disappeared entirely.  

Doing the return trip in the mist was a completely different experience. Although less spectacular, I noticed things I had missed on the way out, and I was protected from the sun and the heat.  I met a family of partridges – friendly birds almost the same size as me – and shared some biscuits with them. 

When the path began to rise steeply again, I knew I was getting closer to my destination. Just when I was thinking the path up would never end, I made out the spherical white form of the radar station through the mist, looking like some alien space craft. 

Made it!  A hard 5 hours walking, with a 30mins break for lunch.  My legs hurt, but it was one of the most spectacular walks I had ever done anywhere, and I was exceptionally lucky to catch the time when the clouds were drifting up from the valley and had not yet reached the summit.  A big thumbs up for the Madeira webcams!

Today I moved to Funchal, the capital of Madeira and by far its biggest city.  I went there via Cabo Girao, a tall cliff on the south coast where they have a built a glass platform over the cliff edge which allows you to look straight down 580m to the sea.  Although I am very small compared to the other big tourists stomping over the glass, I stepped very gingerly and tried to make sure that I kept each paw on a different pane.  

It was a nice site, and looking straight down past my paws to the sea was a novelty, but the view wasn’t that different from all the other pretty seascapes I’d seen on Madeira, and I found the constant stream of tourists rather oppressive. I headed on to Funchal where my flat was in the old town and looked out over Madeira’s old fort.

I will write more about Funchal in a later post.My first activity in the afternoon was a boat trip to look for dolphins and whales.  We headed out to sea in a small RIB (rigid inflatable boat) for about an hour. I scanned the horizon for fins sticking out from the water. Occasionally I got excited when I thought I’d seen one, only to realise that I’d seen the shady side of yet another wave.  The skipper of the boat was better at spotting marine life than I was.  “There they are!” he shouted.  At first, I couldn’t see anything but then I realised we were in the middle of a big group of dolphins swimming right around the boat.  The guide explained that they were Atlantic Spotted Dolphins, and this was a good thing because this species was very sociable and would come and do some “human watching” if they weren’t busy hunting fish.   I spent the next ten minutes with my camera primed, trying to snap the moment when a dolphin fin or tail would break the water.

It was hard to get the timing right, and I ended up with lots of photos of swirling water eddies marking where a dolphin had been.  I switched to filming video instead.  

The guide said that the authorities had strict rules about bothering dolphins, with a limit of ten minutes for observing each group. When our time was up, the skipper accelerated our boat and we headed off to look for more marine life. Our first group of dolphins tried to follow us, occasionally jumping from the water, but eventually got bored and swam off.

Very soon we came across another group of the same dolphin species, and the whole spectacle repeated itself.  Apparently, dolphins are easy to spot, since they are very common and they welcome human contact. Whale sightings are rarer – we didn’t see any.  On the way back, we went past the base of Cabo Girao, and admired the impressive cliff from the bottom.

With the excitement of filming the dolphins, I hadn’t felt sea-sick at all, but instead felt slightly queasy when I got my paws back on firm land at Funchal Marina. For dinner I had fresh dorado on the terrasse of my flat and tried a bottle of “dry” Madeira – which still tasted sweet to me but was very good all the same.

The next day was my last day in the villa on the west of Madeira, and I went for another walk up on the central plateau.  Again, the drive was spectacular.

The walk was supposed to be one-way, requiring a taxi down the valley with the walk back up the mountain, but there were no taxis to be seen so I improvised.  First I wandered around a beautiful meadow dotted with laurel trees and with views stretching far over the north coast. The wind had blown the trees into strange, twisted shapes.

I found a mountain bike track  that led gently downhill, into a thick laurel forest. There were lots of different paths for walkers and bikers, and I made my way streadily downhill following the detailed map that was displayed at the car park, and which I had snapped on my phone.  The laurel forest transformed into a broom forest. Eventually I found the main path CR14 which led back gently uphill alongside another levada.  It was a pretty path, but after and hour following it, I got a little bored continually having to navigate around the muddy pools that dotted the side of the channel.

There seem to be levadas all over Madeira and I wondered how long it took to build them all.   The engineering was impressive – the levadas run for kilometres with a continuous, gentle slope along routes that cling to hills and mountainsides. Occasionally a little side channel lets out some water to stop the main channel from overflowing.  On today’s walk, one of these side channels had become blocked and the path had become flooded, so I had to get my paws wet.

 Finally, the path left the levada and headed straight up a very steep slope, emerging on the main road near the car park. I was tired and hungry but very happy with my improvised walk.

I continued the road down to Porto Moniz. At the coast I was rewarded with a view of a strange rock rising directly from the sea, which I had missed on my visit here a few days ago – I must have been inside a tunnel.

I drank a badly needed coffee and replenished my energy with a thick fish soup at an open-air café in the town, enjoying the view of the bay.  I took the west coast road back home, and this time stopped at Ponta do Pargo to visit the lighthouse.  This is the most south westerly point of Europe and if you sail out to sea in a straight line from here, the first stop will be America.

More fish for dinner back at the villa, and the first clear sunset of my stay to round off my time here.

Today I shook off my apathy and went walking for the first time.  I drove up a steep minor road that led all the way up to the central plateau right on top of Madeira and was rewarded by a straight road with fantastic views over the coast – and not a tunnel in sight!

I was headed towards 25 Fontes, one of the most popular walks on Madeira, and the parking area at the start of the walk was already busy. I headed down into the valley, admiring the views,

Then the path dived into a dense broom forest that ran alongside a levada (man-made water channels that run all around Madeira).  I had always seen broom as little bushes and I didn’t know that it could grow into trees. It was a very pretty path and I enjoyed the alternating shade and sunshine, and the happy gurgle of the water.

The path was narrow and I often had to stop to let other walkers pass.  It was interesting watching the expression on people’s faces when this happened. Some looked happy and gave me a cheery “Bom Dia” or “Hello”, but others looked scared to be so close to another walker – even a teddy bear – and hurried past whilst frowning. Soon I arrived at the Cascada do Risco,  a tall waterfall cascading down a sheer cliff, and hurried to take photos before more visitors arrived.

I then retraced my steps and took a new path along a different levada to the Cascada das 25 Fontes.   In a big clearing, a wide central waterfall spilled down from the mountain, flanked by many smaller falls on both sides.  To count 25 waterfalls required some imagination, but there were certainly a lot and it was a really pretty scene.

From there I retraced my steps to the visitor centre and its cafe. I found a really good place to sit, with far reaching views of the valley.  I also met some new friends to share my garlic bread with.

To get back to my villa I chose a  minor road leading very steeply down to Calheta on the coast – I was pleasantly surprised that I got there without getting lost, and that a little levada followed the road all the way down.  At Calheta I bought fresh fish and wine for dinner to celebrate one of my best days so far on Madeira.

I was running out of things to do in the west of Madeira so the next day I decided to visit some attractions near the capital, Funchal, on the south coast.  I was going to stay there for five days at the end of my holiday but knew that I wouldn’t have time to see everything. First on my list the Curral das Freiras, a remote village located high in the mountains a few km inland. It didn’t seem far – only 20km – but although the road was good and fast, it almost entirely consisted of dark, smelly tunnels.  By the time I arrived at the turn-off for my destination, I was badly in need of fresh air, which the steep mountain road leading to Curral provided. The village was founded by a group of nuns escaping the pirates who used to attack the coast, and indeed you would have to be a very determined assailant to make it all the way there by foot or on horseback.  

I made a detour to the Eira do Serrado viewing point on top of a mountain for spectacular views of the mountains and of Curral das Freiras itself, surrounded by towering peaks.

I noticed the abandoned old road, which was now slowly falling away down the mountain-side, and which used to be the main road to the village.  It had now been replaced – as almost everywhere on Madeira – by a direct tunnel, but I had already had an overdose of tunnels and I decided to give this one a miss.  I couldn’t see how the view could be any better down in the village than it was up on top of the mountain.

My next stop was the Jardim de Palheiro, on the east edge of Funchal.  This garden is part of a private estate of an old Madeiran family, that now includes a hotel and golf course.  It was surprisingly hard to find, and though pretty, was a little small.

Considering the effort needed to get here, I was a bit disappointed – maybe October is not the best season for the gardens on Madeira.  I consoled myself with some tea, cake and my first glass of Madeira in the garden’s café.

After enduring the endless tunnels of the southern highway on the way back, I sat on my sun-lounger in my villa’s garden and was lucky enough to see my first ever complete rainbow. Today I had done everything I had set out to do – but I preferred the unplanned freedom of my exploration of the north coast of the day before.

The next day I set off with the intention of doing a walk in the mountains in the north of Madeira, and then maybe visiting the lighthouse at Ponta del Pargo – the most south westerly point of Europe – on the way back.

I took the main road around the far west of the island, which unlike the south, had yet to be “improved” with tunnels.  Even though it was raining the road was pretty. It ran through woods of pine and eucalyptus and a pleasant smell of wet forest filled the air. The heavy rains and winds of the past few days had created a few hazards on the road, in the form of fallen rocks and one large fallen tree.

It was slow driving along the winding mountain roads, but I finally made it to Porto Moniz, at the extreme north western tip of the island.  This town is famous for its natural pools of seal water, formed by volcanic rock formations stretching into the sea.  

There was a solitary bather in the pools. I dipped my toe in; the water was not too cold, but it wasn’t sunny enough to consider swimming. Instead  I admired the beautiful seascape and the contrast of the blue sea, the white surf, the green mountains and the stark black volcanic rock.

I decided to change plans.  The walk through the forest was going to be steep, and would be very slippery after the rain, so it would be better to do this another day.  Today I was enjoying simply driving and exploring, making things up as I went along. It reminded me of my early carefree backpacking days where I would set off to a destination with no firm plan, no bookings, and sometimes not even a guidebook.   

I drove along the north coast, admiring the views, and then took an interesting looking side road that that led steeply up into the mountains. After a few km the road petered out at the start of a walking trail; I stopped to take photographs and breathed in the fresh mountain air.

Next I headed back to the coast. I reached the town of Seixal, which also has volcanic rock pools, took more photos and stopped for a coffee. 

The weather continually changed –  sometimes cold and showery, sometimes hot and sunny.  The sea air made me feel relaxed and sleepy. I headed back home not having done any of the things that I had planned to do that day, but with a strange feeling of contentment.