On the trails of Madeira: discover Madeira's hiking paradise

In this article I will present the five routes we chose during our 8 days spent in Madeira. If you want to read more about the organization, accommodation and what other sights we visited, please visit this page where you'll find lots of details. As a quick note: the flight was with WizzAir on the following route Bucharest-Rome-Funchal and return the same, the car we rented from RentalCars and the accommodation name is Tropical Garden and it is situated in Arco da Calheta.

Before setting off on any of the routes below or others, please check this site to see if they are open or not.

Our equipment

I've had light, somewhat technical clothes for physical activities. Personally, I buy almost all my sportswear from Decathlon and from Myprotein. Especially, at Decathlon you can find a special hiking area with details on what equipment to choose depending on the difficulty of the trails.

For footwear, we got ourselves a pair of Hoka which are also for running and we wanted to test them on the roads of Madeira. They have non-slip soles and are extremely comfortable, they didn't slip at all and we really had a great time in them. I don't think you necessarily need an extremely special pair, as you would need for the trails in Romania, but something comfortable and with good non-slip grip is just the right thing.

Hiking trails

PR8 Vereda da Ponta de São Lourenço

The trail Ponta de São Lourenço is one of Madeira's most spectacular, offering unique landscapes with dramatic cliffs, expansive Atlantic ocean and vegetation atypical of what you'd expect to see on the island.

MY ADVICE: make sure you have a hat and sunscreen with you, whether you walk it at sunset like us or at a different time. There are no shady areas at all and I thought the sun was also very powerful there. Also watch out for the wind as it can be quite strong in the more exposed areas.

It took us 3 and a half hours and we had a normal pace, stopped at all the cliffs to admire them and took tons of sunset light photos. To enjoy the sunset, we left around 4:30pm from the parking lot and finished it just as the sun set completely.

Dacă vei pune numele traseului pe Google Maps, vei găsi fix locația pentru că extrem de cunoscută. Există o parcare special amenajată, extrem de mare, fără plată la momentul când am fost noi. Din Funchal distanța este de aproape 40 de minute până la punctul de start pe traseu.

You'll see the trail entrance sign from the parking lot and the specially landscaped road, especially at the beginning. The road is just ahead anyway and you know the end is also the end of the island. As you go on, the path gets narrower and passes steep cliffs. The views are breathtaking: you'll see the ocean on both sides of the path and the vegetation is typical of the arid part of the island.

At the end of the peninsula you'll find a small building called Cafetaria Sardine House cafe & snacks, a very chic and exotic cafe with great views of the island. If you want to have a drink and enjoy the view, get there by 5pm when it closes. It's the perfect place to rest and enjoy the panoramic views. You can see the Desertas Islands on clear days.

From the cafe, you can chose to continue towards Miradouro Ponta do Furado, the highest point of the peninsula, and I encourage you to get there. The climb is more demanding, but rewarded with an incredible panoramic view and you won't be sorry. From there, you can get an even better view of the airplanes landing at the airport quite close by and the end of the island. I thought the sky was so blue and beautiful!

Levada do Moinho – Levada Nova

The trail Levada do Moinho – Levada Nova is a charming trail in Madeira, offering a combination of mountain scenery, waterfalls and lush vegetation. For this route I recommend flashlights as you will pass through some tunnels. Also, for the most beautiful ocean views, I recommend exactly this route from Levada do Moinho to Levada Nova, and the end point is in the same village as the starting point. Basically it's a circuit route not to be missed.

To reach the starting point of the route, you need to get to Ponta do Sol and from there go up following the signs to Levada do Moinho/Levada Nova. You will arrive in a small village surrounded by many banana plantations where you can leave the car. There is no parking place, we left it on the side of the road and set off on the trail past a church. I'll leave the point on the map, but if you type the name Levada do Moinho on Google Maps, it will take you to the right place.

The first part of the trail crosses a lovely valley with meadows, terraced gardens and wildflowers along the levadas. The path is narrow and you have to be careful if you meet other tourists, but I didn't find the trail all that popular. After following the Levada do Moinho for about 2.5-3 km, you'll come to an area where the two levadas intersect. The Levada Nova is higher up than the Levada do Moinho, so a short but extremely accessible climb will be required. Here is also the impressive waterfall that you'll pass under, which makes this trail famous.

After a tunnel, the landscape will change because you basically start walking back to the village, but with the ocean in front of you. It's a very nice view and different from the one you started with. The only things to watch out for are the sometimes too narrow paths and areas where there are no handrails.

Pico do Arieiro

At the time we were there, the famous trail Pico-to-Pico was closed due to wildfires. But the route is an extremely complex one with about 14 km round trip and you reach the highest mountains on the island. The scenery is truly out of this world! Just to complete this route, we will definitely return to Madeira.

Of course Pico do Arieiro (1818m) is also the best place to see the sunrise. I say it's 150% worth it to get up a little early, drive to the specially designated parking lot and get to the view point. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous with the sun coming out perfectly round on the horizon and the sea of clouds covering the whole island.

After sunrise, we set off on the 1.25 km of open trail to the Pedra Rija Viewpoint, so 2,5 km back and forth.. It's not a hard route, it's more downhill, the path is a bit narrow and you have to be careful, especially as there are extremely crowded. On the way back it's uphill and you can feel a bit tired, but it doesn't hurt to have a coffee and a pasteis de nata at the top cafe with the super view, right?

It can be overwhelming if you have altitude sickness because left-right are canyons and impressive, but very steep valleys. Stop at all the view points to take in even more of the mountain ridges that show just how complex this tiny island can be. The sunrise light is perfect for photos!

PR 1.2 Vereda do Pico Ruivo

Then we drove for about an hour to the point where the route to Pico Ruivois starting, , the highest peak (1862m) on the island and the third highest in Portugal. Special parking is at this restaurant Achada do Teixeira – Mountain Spot Café, this being the starting point of the route. From here to the summit it's almost 3km of ascent, so 6km round trip.

On this side, the trail is very different from the one at Pico do Arieiro, much greener, full of valleys like in the Avatar movie and with a much wider path. I really liked that there are these paths made for tourists so that the flora is not affected. It's a continuous climb to the top, but I didn't find it difficult at all, everyone can do it. In the pictures you can see how strong the fires were and how much they destroyed the nature of the island 🙁

The scenery from the top is stunningly beautiful and you can see Pico do Arieiro in the distance. But it is an extremely complex landscape and it has it all: mountains, valleys, green mountain ridges, small villages in the distance and the Atlantic Ocean. On the descent we were lucky to be in the alpine sea, even though it was past midday.

PR9 Levada do Caldeirão Verde

The trail to Levada do Caldeirão Verde este unul dintre cele mai populare și spectaculoase trasee de pe insula Madeira. Acesta oferă o combinație de peisaje dramatice, cascade și tuneluri misterioase, fiind o experiență de neuitat. Traseul începe în Forestier Queimadas Park, a picturesque place with a traditional Madeiran wooden house surrounded by laurel forests. You can get here by car (parking available for a fee) or by public/local transportation, depending on where you are staying.

The route is well signposted and follows the course of the levada. It's not so narrow at first, but as you go along, the path is extremely narrow and you have to be careful when passing other tourists. You will cross several short tunnels, but one of them is longer (about 100 meters). A torch is essential, and keep your head down in low areas.

In fact, you'll walk through the valleys you've seen following the route to Pico Ruivo and that transported me to the Avatar movie. The vegetation is very rich here, reminiscent of an extremely exotic jungle perhaps in South East Asia, not at all an island in Europe. That complex is Madeira with its nature!

The route ends at the impressive Caldeirão Verde, a natural pool formed at the base of a 100-meter-high waterfall. It gave me the impression that we were in the crater of a volcano because that's exactly what it looks like, a huge hollow is all this area where the waterfall falls. Probably if it rains, the water flow is much higher. We were in a rather dry period and there wasn't much water, but even so, we were very impressed.

Conclusion

We are extremely happy with the routes we chose, we had a bit of everything and I think we saw as much of Madeira as we could in the best possible way. All the trails are very well maintained and they make sure that the island is not affected by tourists. It really is a hiker's paradise for how diverse and impressive the trails are. For us it was the perfect way to discover it and so glad we like the mountain trails otherwise we would have missed many beautiful places in Madeira.

I hope you found this article helpful in planning your next island getaway. Don't forget to follow me for more travel ideas and let me know in the comments how Madeira sounded to you too!