Mountains, Views & Gardens: Five Fabulous Days In Madeira

I want to shout it from the rooftops – I bloody LOVE Madeira!

January always brings some winter blues, so we decided to go somewhere for my birthday. We wanted winter sun, I wanted somewhere that was already on my list, and we both wanted somewhere a bit different to the usual suspects like Tenerife or Lanzarote, but we (or at least I…) couldn’t take enough time off work to go anywhere too exotic. Enter: Madeira!

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This small but mighty Portuguese island feels very underrated compared to the popularity of the neighbouring Spanish islands. It’s got a reputation for attracting older people, and it’s a common stop-off point for cruises making their way to the Caribbean (from which most people we met were indeed retirees, because who else can take over a month off and afford that sort of cruise?).

And yet the people I know who have been there lately, in their 30s, have absolutely raved about it. Not in a “yeah it was a nice holiday” way; in a “this might actually be my favourite place in the world” way. It seemed like everyone who visits will return. Indeed, between everyone we met on our flight, in our hotel, on our tour, and on the cable cars, it started to feel like we were the only people who were on the island for the first time.

And now we can firmly say that we can see the attraction.

First of all, DON’T go to Madeira if you want sandy beaches or you want a holiday to do nothing.

It’s true, Madeira doesn’t really have your typical beaches. What it does have is phenomenal views, beautiful coastlines, levada hikes, charming villages, and lots and lots of hills. It has one of the most unique airports in Europe, and you can take a death-defying bus into a mountain valley. Basically, if you want a do-nothing holiday, go somewhere boring. Madeira is not it.

We only had four nights, but I came up with a really solid itinerary. (We even managed to relax as well, believe it or not!) Here’s a quick overview:

Day 1 – arrival & intro to Funchal
Day 2 – Funchal & Monte:
– Take the cable car up to Monte
– Visit Monte Palace Tropical Gardens
– Watch the wicker toboggans (or ride on one if you fancy!)
– Find the painted doors in Funchal
– Eat a prego sandwich at a snack bar
– Explore the Old Town
– Drink poncha!
Day 3 – East Island Tour:
– Cristo dei Rei
– Sao Lourenco
– Santana
– Ribeiro Firo Balcoes levada walk
– Pico do Areeiro for sunset
Day 4 – Curral das Freiras & Camara De Lobos:
– Hike into the Valley of the Nuns from Eira do Sorrado
– Spend the afternoon in a quaint fishing village
Day 5 – relax & time to say goodbye

Day 1 – arrival & intro to Funchal

We arrived in the afternoon, which only really gave us the evening to get acquainted with our surroundings.

However, even the arrival into Madeira makes for an interesting experience. You see, the runway is on stilts, with part of it over the sea. Pilots actually have to do extra training to learn how to land here, lest they overshoot and end up in the water. So as you can imagine, it’s an interesting landing!

We stayed in the main town of Funchal, which is a fantastic base for exploring the island. After settling into our room and having an early dinner, we took a walk along the promenade, and I was blown away by the view of all the lights up the hills. What a delight.

Photos don’t do it justice, of course. The lights were like fireflies! (And I was disappointed that the jellyfish weren’t lit up.)

The promenade is home to wonders such as the Cristiano Ronaldo museum (yes, this is where he’s from!), but I was far more interested in this fish.

(This was actually created by Bordalo II – more of his fantastic and thought-provoking street art made of rubbish is featured later in the post!)

Day 2 – Funchal & Monte

There is absolutely no point in me writing a guide to Funchal, ever, because my friend Caroline from Pack The Suitcases has you more than covered. In fact, I got most of my inspiration from her, including places to eat.

However, here’s quick run down of what we got up to. We stayed in Funchal and spent the evenings there, but other than that we only had one full day in the town itself.

We started with another mandatory walk along the promenade, before moving “inland” to pick up some supplies like bottles of water, and sunglasses, which Ash had somehow forgotten. It was a good excuse to check out some souvenirs, and, more importantly, find some of the painted doors.

These are SO cool, and one of my highlights of Funchal. Most of the doors can be found along Rua de Santa Maria, so we headed along here all the way to the cable car station. What’s fascinating is I just went on Google Street View and it’s from 2009, and NONE of the doors are painted! Like looking into a piece of history.

After getting our (my) fix of painted doors, we hopped on a cable car up to Monte. This is probably the #1 thing to do in Funchal, and there are a few attractions up there to enjoy. The main one for us was the Monte Palace Tropical Gardens.

I’m not exaggerating when I say these are by far the best gardens we’ve ever been to. We LOVED them!

We didn’t go to the Botanical Gardens, but I’ve read a few people say they prefer the Tropical Gardens, and I am a firm believer that this is the correct option if you’re trying to choose between the two.

The highlight by far was the Japanese garden at the bottom. There are also the Japanese gardens near the entrance, which are lovely, with lots of different routes to take, but the bottom section feels much more tropical. There’s also a pond with islands and waterfalls, AND there are flamingos!!! Oh, and there’s an entire exhibition on gemstones and rocks. Seriously, this place is AWESOME. One of the highlights of our trip!

So much so that I can’t narrow down the photos. I’m afraid it can’t be done, so here’s some photo spam:

The original plan was to buy a one-way ticket on the cable car, and take the wicker toboggan back down. I was going off this idea the more I looked into it – the toboggans are a traditional way to get downhill in Madeira, but while it’s fun and authentic in theory, it appears to be much more of a tourist trap these days.

For a whopping 35€ for two people, you can be pushed down the hill in a blur of adrenaline rush, but it only takes you around half way down to the Old Town and you can hop on a bus the rest of the way. Apparently you are then bombarded by men insisting that the bus isn’t running and you can take an extortionate taxi with them instead. I’d also heard that the queue can be hours.

And yet… we got there, and there was no queue. I was SO tempted!

Even if it’s touristy, so what? It’s got authentic roots, and come on, it looks like so much fun! I’d definitely like to do it once.

Anyway, we already felt committed to the cable car as we’d bought a return ticket, so we headed back down and had a private compartment, so that was great. And the cable car is 100000% worth it – it would take hours to walk up, so the pay-off is huge.

Plus you get fantastic views over Funchal!

Speaking of views, the next thing on my list after lunch was Fortaleza de Sao Joao Baptista do Pico – another recommendation from Caroline. This looks like a fantastic viewpoint, and it’s free! But the opening times are really odd – it’s closed at weekends, and only open during the week from 10am-12.30pm and 2pm-5pm.

I wasn’t feeling 100% (I believe I had forgotten what warmth felt like and my body didn’t know what to do, and then I ate too much maracuja cheesecake), so we decided to skip this – I was going to attempt to go again on Monday, but never did. Instead, we just wandered through the Old Town which we loved. I’ll be honest – I didn’t expect to. I don’t know why.

Food & drink in Funchal

So the number one thing you need to know about drinking in Funchal is that the “national” drink is poncha, a potent but fruity rum drink. A.k.a. right up my alley!

Caroline has written on her blog: legend has it that if you drink three poncha, you’ll be able to speak fluent Portuguese. To be honest, you’d be lucky to be able to speak at all.

I giggle at this every time I read it, but as a rum lover, I scoffed – until I drank two. She is NOT wrong! Two was enough. I’ll get to three next time. For the record, my favourite so far is maracuja, or passion fruit, though the traditional lemon flavour is also great.

For poncha, head to Rei da Poncha. This is a really fun, mostly outdoor, bar with a great atmosphere. We could have happily gone there every night of the trip!

We also went to the Madeira Rum House for my birthday, which was much more of a proper rum place. I did a tasting (a rum flight!), and I have to admit: I don’t think I love rum on its own! Anyway, it’s a very cool place if you’re into rum, and the owner is very friendly and knowledgeable.

And onto food. Usually I would have mentioned this first, but you can’t really talk about Madeira without mentioning poncha, so that had to take precedent.

So the number one thing I had on my list was eating a prego – a steak sandwich.

The place we checked out for lunch was Snack Bar Bela 5. Snack bars are an institution, and we saw them all over Madeira. This one doesn’t look like much from the outside, which goes for many of them, but it is SO good. The service was excellent. I highly recommend going for lunch here, and their menu changes every day but they always whip up a good prego.

For specific places to eat, Caroline has lots of recommendations.

To be honest, our booking was half board, so it included dinner, and it’s exactly why I don’t normally like the idea of package holidays – because it felt like we missed out on lots of options! Our meals at the hotel were excellent, but I think we’d go B&B next time so we can check out more local offerings!

Day 3 – East Island Tour

Our main “day out” was a tour of the eastern part of the island, which is incredible. This covers four places that were on my list to see, so it felt pretty comprehensive! We decided to spice it up a bit and rather than going for one of the conventional tours, we risked booking a more expensive one with Aloha Madeira Tours that included sunset at Pico do Areeiro (just to note: this tour doesn’t seem to be available any more… I’ll update if I find a good alternative!).

I say this was a risk because you NEVER know what the weather will be like. On an island as mountainous as Madeira, the clouds are regularly stuck and there was every chance we wouldn’t get a view, let alone a sunset. Read on for whether we were lucky…

Cristo Rei statue

Our first stop was a quick view of the Cristo Rei statue. I ended up walking down the steps to the end to get views along the coast to Funchal, but to be honest it wasn’t really worth the effort. The views are just as good from near the top. It’s worth a quick pit stop but you don’t need much time here.

Ponta de Sao Lourenco

Next up was Sao Lourenco, which is an absolutely stunning peninsula poking out of the southeastern end of Madeira. It reminds me a lot of Scotland – this view wouldn’t look out of place on Skye!

I had the Ponta do Rosto viewpoint on my list, and we happened to stop here. But honestly, this whole area is just incredible. Looking back up the coast, the huge cliffs appeared to go on for miles, while looking down the peninsula, the sea stacks just add to the view.

There’s a hiking trail along the peninsula, so that might be one for next time. For now, I was content gawping at the view and watching the waves below. We had about half an hour here to wander, which was great as we didn’t feel rushed like you sometimes do on tours. (Some other tours I looked up, you only get 15 minutes here!)

Santana

We then drove up to the top of the island, through some astonishing scenery, until we got to Santana. This pretty little village is home to the last remaining traditional houses of Madeira.

They’ve been turned into little shops, and although it’s touristy, it doesn’t feel… tacky? There’s also a replica up by the car park which has been set up how they used to be, and you can go in and take a look for free, so that’s pretty cool.

I’d also spotted something on the way in to the village, so I had to take a little walk…

This is by one of my favourite street artists, Bordalo II, who you might remember from the fish in Funchal – he’s also done lots of these in Porto and Lisbon which I’ve seen! They are made from rubbish he’s collected, and they are SO COOL!! There’s actually another one on Madeira which I’ll talk about later in the post. I didn’t know there was one in Santana!

Also, something funny we found in Madeira is that Christmas stuff was still everywhere in January. Apparently some stuff stays up until March!? It was definitely strange being greeted by a big Santa at the airport, haha. Especially when we’d gone from minus 6 degrees in Edinburgh to 22 degrees in Madeira! Anyway, Santana had a fun display.

The drive around Santana is absolutely incredible too – I had one viewpoint written down, Miradouro do Curtado, which I don’t think we went past, but we saw similar views on the drive and it was honestly just something else.

And it was about to get even better…

Miradouro do Balcoes (Ribeira Firo)

The next stop was a short hike along one of Madeira’s levadas. There are loads of these all over the island; basically walking trails that follow the irrigation channels along the hillsides. What’s quite funny is they are quite a unique thing in Madeira, yet two months before this trip, I happened to do exactly the same type of walk in Andorra.

And if I thought the views in Andorra were good…

These were better!! Just outstanding.

Not only that but you can (though shouldn’t…) feed wild birds here! To be honest we weren’t going to, but there was seed lying around, so we picked some up so they’d come to our hand. I mean, they were already eating it anyway.

It’s quite a magical experience!

Apparently there are varying levels of difficulty on these walks, but this one is really easy; flat the whole way and very easy to follow.

Plus you are invited to have a poncha, so all in all, a classic Madeiran experience!

Pico do Areeiro

And finally, the last stop of the tour, and our most anticipated. Pico do Areeiro is one of the most famous views on the island, with epic walking trails, and I’d love to go back to do the hike there.

For now, we were just hoping for a sunset.

Well DAMNNNNN.

This might just be one of the best views I’ve ever seen.

I walked down the first part of the trail to get some amazing photos with the path. Some of the trail is closed at the moment, but it was possible to at least get as far as the Ninho da Manta observation deck, which we could see not too far away. (Though facing the wrong way for the sunset, so I have no idea what people were doing there!) I didn’t go that far.

Overall, this tour was INCREDIBLE. Most tours on Madeira are small groups, simply because the roads can’t handle large coaches, so you’ll always get a relatively exclusive experience, but this one was well worth paying extra for. Our guide even added in a couple of extra viewpoints as we had the time – we even managed to watch a plane come in to land. I’ve read in the reviews that they also have a back-up plan for sunset.

It looks like the tour we did isn’t bookable right now – I’ll update this once it is! In the meantime, the regular Best Of The East tours are available here!

Day 4 – Valley Of The Nuns & Camara de Lobos

Again, there is no point me dedicating a post to the Valley Of The Nuns, because Caroline has it covered – and Camara de Lobos is small enough that it doesn’t need its own post (although guess what – she has that covered too!).

We (or I) decided to spend my birthday mixing it up a bit, with a hike in the morning and a casual stroll through a lovely fishing village in the afternoon. Both of these are very close to Funchal with good bus connections, so this was absolutely doable, before you think I’m totally mad.

Curral das Freiras & Eira do Serrado

We took the #81 bus towards Curral das Freiras, or the Valley Of The Nuns, but made sure to aim for one that stops on the way at the Eira do Serrado viewpoint. The timetable is very confusing as there are so many variable routes, but follow the one online and it should keep you right.

The bus journey is pretty nuts, but the road to the viewpoint is even more so – look at these drops!

It’s worth stopping at Eira do Serrado regardless as the viewpoint is epic, but our plan was to hike from there down into the village.

The village was cast in shadow while we did the hike, but this worked in our favour as it meant the whole walk was shaded.

This is a great hike as it’s all downhill, and it took us just under an hour to get to the village. It was 45 minutes to the bottom of the trail and then you have to walk up the road for around 10 minutes to get into the main part of the village.

We headed to one of the cafés to grab some food, although I decided against the first one we went to, because I wanted a terrace view. My perseverance paid off when we walked into La Perla Restaurant and there were tables available on the terrace.

How’s this for a lovely view with a drink?! And by this point, the sun had reached over the surrounding hills and we could bask in the sunshine. Absolute bliss.

You have to try something chestnutty in Curral das Freiras, too. I also had a sample of a chestnut liqueur in the main shop.

From there, we headed back to Funchal on the bus, with a little detour through more of the village, which turned out to be a gamble that paid off, as the scenery was just something else! I don’t think I got any photos as I was just enjoying the views so much.

We popped by our hotel before our afternoon excursion, and the cleaners had been past – and left us a bottle of bubbly for my birthday!! Such a lovely touch. We really loved our hotel.

Camara de Lobos

After a glass each, we headed back out to catch the #1 bus to Camara de Lobos. This might not have been the best option, because it drops you a bit further away than the #3 bus. Neither of them go right into Camara de Lobos, but that’s fine because the coastal walk to it is beautiful.

In fact, you can also walk all the way from Funchal, but part of it’s closed off at the moment (as someone on our tour the day before said he had found out the hard way!!).

Camara de Lobos is a lovely little coastal fishing village, practically on the outskirts of Funchal, so very easy to visit in a few hours. In fact, we did absolutely nothing there.

We sat by the harbour and enjoyed the views. I had to get a photo of the seal – can you guess who the artist is? That’s right, this is the third piece of art by Bordala II featured in this post.

There’s also a statue of Winston Churchill sitting outside one of the bars, and the harbour is even called Churchill Bay, because the man himself used to come here and be inspired to paint. So if you ever wanted a photo with Churchill, this is the place to come.

If you’re a Ronaldo fan, don’t miss Bar Filhos d’Mar. I found out about this place afterwards, but it basically has a shrine to Ronaldo, and the owners are friends with his family.

Being a seaside fishing village, you can imagine that the food here is seafood-heavy. As I said before, we had dinner included at our hotel, so we headed back early evening instead of indulging in the local offerings, but this is definitely somewhere we’ll come back to!

Anyway, what a perfect birthday! Absolutely loved both of these places and it was well worth trying to do them in a day, as it worked out so well.

Day 5 – relax until departure

We were being picked up late morning to go back to the airport, so we didn’t have enough time to do much. I was very tempted to go and check out the fortress view, but decided to actually just relax by the pool with a book.

After all, this was meant to be a relatively relaxing holiday, and we’d done absolutely loads!

(For what it’s worth, the airport even has a terrace where you can stand and watch the planes landing and taking off, so it’s a rare instance where it’s worth arriving early for your flight home. Is there anything about Madeira that ISN’T brilliant?)

So on that note, I need to talk about where we stayed…

Where to stay in Madeira

There are tons of options in Funchal, but many of them are along the coast outside the town. These are all big resorts, but we wanted something a little more… authentic. This is where quintas come in. A quinta is an old, traditional manor house in Madeira, and many of them have been turned into hotels.

We stayed at Quinta da Penha de Franca, which is a charming hotel with a lovely garden and pool. It also has a more modern complex with another pool, and you have access to that pool as well. I’m very glad we stayed in the more traditional side.

And while it’s on the same side of Funchal as a lot of the resort hotels, it’s only a five minute walk down to the harbour, which makes it super accessible instead of having to get a bus like most of the other hotels. And for the two buses we took above, it’s only a few minutes walk to the bus stop for both of those services, so it was ideal.

Anyway, we adored our garden room, although I think we’ll try and get a seaview one with a balcony next time. We’ll also go bed & breakfast, but the dinner menu was brilliant. It wasn’t a buffet like a lot of hotels, it was a proper meal with a different theme each night, and the food and service were excellent.

Honestly, I don’t think we could have chosen somewhere better. Can we stay here every year, please?

Book the Quinta da Penha de Franca here!

I’m sure you can tell, but we absolutely adored Madeira.

I knew I’d love it – but I don’t think I expected to come away after four nights and decide that this could actually be our annual holiday for the rest of our lives. I truly never thought I’d find a place that comes into THAT category! You could say I’m… *lowers sunglasses* mad for Madeira.

It’s certainly cemented the fact that Portugal is my favourite European country. There is no competition any more. I love everywhere I been; Lisbon, Porto, the Algarve. And now Madeira.

AND, of course, nothing on this trip was a disaster! Hallelujah!

Hope you’ve enjoyed this whirlwind tour of Madeira – I’m afraid all it’s done for me is make me want to go back.

Read more about Portugal below:
⭐ Loving Lisbon: A Perfect 3 Day Itinerary
⭐ The Best Of One Day In Porto – Viewpoints, Bookshops & Port
⭐ A Photo Guide To Sintra, The Best Day Trip From Lisbon
⭐ Exploring The Best Beaches On The Algarve
⭐ Visiting The Algarve: Why You Shouldn’t Skip Faro