November 22
This day was mostly taken up by travel from Madrid. After I landed and checked into the hostel, I explored the old town of Funchal. It is quaint but not as big as many of the other old towns that I have been in. It is also filled with tourists, to the point where I could barely hear any Portuguese as I walked down the cobblestone roads. As I explored, I found a restaurant called Casa do Bolo do Caco which was offering a Madeiran sandwich called “prego especial” for €5.95; it sounded like a steal so I bought one. What. A. Great. Decision. The sandwich was filled with lettuce, tomato, fried egg and a steak in a Madeiran garlic bread variety called bolo do caco. This was incredibly filling and very cheap, which became the main food theme as I explored more restaurants in Madeira. This was a pleasant surprise.
After my spectacular lunch, I went to the seaside and caught a cable car to the Monte Palace gardens. This was hands down the best botanical garden that I have visited. The design of the garden emphasizes its scale and variety; this is mainly because it is on a hill and the design forces you to look up and down the hill as you explore. There are a lot of different plants and they were craftfully integrated with Portuguese tilings and exquisite sculptures.
After spending 2 hours in the garden, I took the cable car down to Funchal, which happened to coincide with sunset. While not as nice as the sunset in Tenerife, it was nonetheless beautiful. I would recommend visitors to check out the palace during sunset to catch some stellar views.
Arriving in Funchal, my stomach was beginning to growl so I went to a snack bar that was serving some traditional Madeiran food for only €8. In typical Madeiran fashion, the quanitity of the food more than made up the cost. A food coma paired with a need to wake up early the next morning necessitated an early crash.
November 23
I decided to do a sunrise hike from Pico do Areiro to Pico Ruivo, which are the highest points of Madeira. I got picked up in a small van at 6am and met up with some other hikers. In my group, I had a German exchange student, a British family and a set of British twins who were celebrating one of their upcoming weddings. Just as we started bonding with each other, we reached Pico do Areiro. While it was incredibly dark, there was a silver lining: stars. I never saw that many stars in my life. Jaw-dropped, I made my way to the edge of the mountain with my group and waited as the sun slowly peaked over the clouds. This was an unforgettable moment for me. The vibrant purple-orange sunrise shot its way across the sky as the whole group of us oohed and aahed.
Eventually, we decided to do the hike. While it is supposed to take roughly 3 hours to reach Pico Ruivo, we stopped a lot to take lots of pictures as the sun came up. It was also an incredible sight walking high above the clouds, something I never thought I would have gotten to experience. The hike was challenging, but incredibly rewarding as we perched high above Madeira. One of my favourite parts of the hike was the people I was with; we were able to bond, joke and help each other as we struggled to get to Pico Ruivo.
While the views from Pico Ruivo were immaculate, I actually enjoyed the last part of the hike, which was hiking from Pico Ruivo to Achada do Teixeira. This was the easiest and arguably the most picturesque part of the hike. Since there were very little hikers here, we were greeted with nature’s silence while walking above the clouds.
After we completed the hike, our van picked us up and drove us back to Funchal. After a short break, I made my to the Funchal Botanical Garden. While not as impressive as Monte Palace Garden, the variety of flowers was still very impressive to me. Madeira’s perpetual spring-like weather paired with its volcanic soil makes the island the perfect place to grow flowers.
I was getting a little peckish so I made my way to Churrascaria Sao Roque. This is a traditional local Madeiran barbeque restaurant where customers are expected to roast their food in a fire until ready. It was a really interesting and unique experience, but I was overfed with bolo do caco, potatos, 0.5L of red wine and 2 skewers of meat.
I made my back to the hostel and talked with some of my hostel mates (a Hungarian flight attendant and a Lebanese-American university student) and crashed.
November 24
This day, I did an east island guided tour with 6 other people (a Belarussian couple, a Slovakian couple and 2 Hungarian friends).
We first visited Ponta de Sao Laurenco, a peninsula on the eastern end of the island. It was a very pretty sight to see both the north and south ends of the island. Afterwards, we went to a Madeiran distillery where we had Madeiran rum. I had a shot of 60% alcohol rum and 40% alcohol rum, which is probably the highest percentage of alcohol I have consumed (I liked the 60% more). Sufficiently inebriated, we made our way to Santana to grab food and check out local houses, which have straw roofs.
Our next activity was a levada walk. Levadas are irrigation channels that are used extensively across Madeira to bring water from the north side of the island to the south. This particular levada was in a laurisilva forest, which is a very rare type of forest but common in Atlantic islands. The walk was quite peaceful and relaxing and offered great views of the forest.
The last activity was visiting Pico Areiro. The sight of the mountain is starkly different than the previous sunrise view. By this time, the clouds from the ocean had rolled in, so we could see some beautiful cloud patterns as they danced their way through the surrounding mountain ranges.
After returning to Funchal, I checked out the promenade with its variety of parks and attractions. I eventually landed at a food hall, where I got some traditional Portuguese meat dishes and some poncha, which is Madeiran alcohol. Afterwards, I came back to my hostel and chatted with my hostel mates before going back to sleep.
November 25
This was my west island tour day. I didn’t realize that the tour was going to be in a open-top safari so I was pleasantly surprised when the jeep pulled up to my hostel. Our first stop on the tour was Camera de Lobos, which is like a smaller version of Positano. We then headed out to Cabo Girao, which had a very mediocre glass skywalk but great views of Funchal.
We then made our way to Porto Moniz for lunch and to check out natural volcanic pools. I wasn’t particularly impressed by the pools but I did meet 2 elderly German friends and had a nice time chatting with them as we ate lunch together and checked out the pools. Afterwards, we checked out Seixal for the black sand beach. It was quite unimpressive to be completely honest. Madeira is not known for its beaches.
Soon afterwards, we drove to Riberia da Janela, which offered a stunning view of the northern side of the island. The deep blue of the sky along with the emerald green fauna of the mountains was jaw-droppingly gorgeous. I spent a lot of time there and then headed up to Fanal Forest. This is a very popular tourist stop as it looks really eerie when clouds roll into the forest. Unfortunately, clouds did not cover the forest when we were up there but it was still interesting to roam around.
After Fanal Forest, we started offroading in the Paul de Serra area of Madeira. This is probably my favorite part of the tour as we drove straight into the clouds with the open top. Driving out of the clouds, we were met with beautiful scenery of the Madeiran highlands along with plenty of electric turbines. It was pretty unforgettable.
After arriving back in Funchal, I was digging some Indian food, so I found a decent place and got some lamb biriyani. After making my way back to the hostel, I met a new hostel mate from Prague and we talked a bunch about her exchange experiences in Vancouver, cultural differences between Czechia and Slovakia and much more.
November 26
This day was dedicated to the famous Rabacal and 25 Fountains (waterfalls) levada hike. We started off the day by picking up everyone from hotels and bus stops and eventually made our way to the Rabacal area. The hike itself was quite easy and the guide did an excellent job explaining the functionality of levadas and how they were built. The scenery was also beautiful. My major gripe with the hike was the actual 25 Fountains area. Since it is one of the most popular tourist spots in Madeira, it was quite busy at the end. People swarmed across the rocks in front of the waterfalls and were talking up a storm. It was a little disappointing but oh well, you can’t really control it.
Instead of going back to the parking lot of the hike, we instead followed the levada through the mountain to get to the north side of the island, which was drastically different. Getting through the muddy, wet and dark tunnel was a bit difficult but the resulting greenery and rolling clouds of the north side more than made up for it. Along this hike, I met a bunch of cool northern Europeans, including a Finnish product manager. These guided tours have been a huge blessing for me as I get to meet the most interesting people.
Getting back to Funchal, I promptly hit up the Indian restaurant again to eat more biriyani (it was good enough for a Round 2). After getting back to the hostel, I met a new hostel mate from Finland and saw the Lebanese American, where we got around sharing our travel stories and recommendations.
November 27
I had no plans for this day as I had to leave for a flight later in the afternoon, so I slept in and just explored a bit more of Funchal. Nothing crazy notable about this day asides from dealing with three exchange students who decided to drink a whole bottle of poncha on the bus to the airport.
Tips
- I would strongly recommend bus tours in Madeira. You not only get to meet some interesting people on your travels, but you also don’t have to worry about navigating tricky roads or making hiking loops. This was especially useful on my sunrise hike, as I didn’t need to hike back all the way from Pico Ruivo to Pico Areiro
- However, if you want to do independent travels, then renting the car is the way to go. There is a definite tradeoff between guided tours vs. renting a car, so choose what works best for your plans
- If you are doing hikes, make sure to bring a flashlight stronger than your phone’s flashlight. There are plenty of tunnels in Madeira and they are often muddy and dirty.
- Look out for prego especial; godsend lunch food
- Get the Giro card for easy transit access across the Funchal area
- This is a guess of mine, so take it with a grain of salt, but I believe that the best time to visit the Fanal Forest is late afternoon. Late afternoon is when clouds roll into Madeira from my observations, so this is the best time to get the spooky vibes of the forest.