Madeira: what to see, where to stay and how to get around
Portuguese sailors found Madeira empty and covered in forest in 1419 and named it the island of wood; Funchal is named for the wild fennel, funcho, that grew on its shore. The town grew rich on sugar and then on wine, and its old streets run between the cathedral, the market and the sea. Two hours, gently uphill in places; the market is best early.
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A short history of Madeira
In 1419–1420 the Portuguese navigators João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz reached the island of Madeira, which was uninhabited. The name Madeira means 'wood', after the forests that covered it. In the 15th century sugar cane was grown here, and the island was one of Europe's first sugar centres. In the 17th and 18th centuries Madeira wine became famous; it actually improved thanks to the heat in the holds of ships. From the 19th century British tourists came to Funchal for the winter. In 1985 Cristiano Ronaldo was born in Funchal, and the island's airport is now named after him.
The ten best sights in Madeira
1Sé do FunchalLook up: a carved cedar ceiling inlaid with ivory
2Rua de Santa MariaThe oldest street, every door painted by an artist
3Forte de São TiagoA yellow fort at the end of the old town, by the sea
4Museu CR7Ronaldo was born in Funchal; his trophies are here
5Convento de Santa ClaraTiled church where the island’s discoverer is buried
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6Quinta das Cruzes
A manor museum with an orchid garden
7Igreja do MonteThe tomb of the last Habsburg emperor
8Carreiros do MonteTwo kilometres downhill in a wicker sled steered by two men
9Monte Palace Tropical GardenGardens, lakes and centuries of tile panels
10Jardim BotânicoPatterned flower beds over the bay
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What is an audio walk?
Tours in Madeira →A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Madeira:
Free walking tours in Madeira
Old Funchal
Portuguese sailors found Madeira empty and covered in forest in 1419 and named it the island of wood; Funchal is named for the wild fennel, funcho, that grew on its shore. The town grew rich on sugar and then on wine, and its old streets run between the cathedral, the market and the sea. Two hours, gently uphill in places; the market is best early.
- Sé do Funchal · Built when Madeira was the sugar island of Europe and finished early in the sixteenth century, the cathedral looks plain from outside. Inside, the ceiling is a carved geometric lattice of local cedar inlaid with ivory, in the Moorish style, one of the finest of its kind in Portugal.
- Blandy’s Wine Lodge · Madeira wine is famous for a mistake: barrels shipped as ballast through the tropics came back better than they left, so the island began heating its wine on purpose. It keeps for well over a century once opened, and the signing of the American Declaration of Independence is said to have been toasted with it. The Blandy family has made it here since 1811.
- Convento de Santa Clara · João Gonçalves Zarco, the captain who claimed the island for Portugal in 1419, is buried in this church, whose walls are covered in tiles from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. His family founded the convent next door at the end of the fifteenth century.
- Mercado dos Lavradores · A market hall of 1940 with tile panels of market women at the entrance. Downstairs is the fish hall, where the black scabbardfish lies on the slabs — a long black fish with huge eyes and fangs that lives a kilometre down and has been caught by Madeiran fishermen for centuries on long lines lowered at night.
- Rua de Santa Maria · The oldest street in Funchal, where the plague hit hardest and the poor lived, was half abandoned until 2010, when a project invited artists to paint its doors. Now well over a hundred doors are artworks, and the street is full of restaurants.
- Forte de São Tiago · The yellow fort at the eastern end of the old town was built after 1566, when French corsairs landed, sacked Funchal for two weeks and killed hundreds of its people. Below it is the little beach where the fishermen of the old quarter swim.
Up to Monte
Above Funchal the hillside village of Monte was where the rich built their summer houses and where an exiled emperor died. You go up by cable car, walk the gardens and the church, and come down the old way, in a wicker sled. Half a day; the sled is a short, fast ride.
- Funchal Cable Car · The cable car climbs from the old town by the sea to Monte, about five hundred and sixty metres up, over the roofs, banana patches and ravines of the hillside, in about fifteen minutes.
- Monte Palace Tropical Garden · A garden built around an old hotel by a Madeiran-born collector, José Berardo, with lakes of koi, oriental gates, and long panels of Portuguese tiles telling the country’s history, some of them five hundred years old.
- Igreja do Monte · Charles I, the last emperor of Austria-Hungary, was exiled to Madeira after the First World War, and died of pneumonia in 1922 in a damp villa here, aged thirty-four. He is buried in a side chapel of this church, and the Catholic Church beatified him in 2004.
- Carreiros do Monte · Since the middle of the nineteenth century people have come down from Monte in wicker armchairs on wooden runners, steered and braked by two men in white with straw hats, using the rubber soles of their boots. The run is about two kilometres on the public road, and reaches the speed of a car.
- Jardim Botânico · The botanical garden on the estate of the Reid family, of Reid’s Hotel, collects the island’s own plants — many found nowhere else — and has flower beds laid out in carpet patterns, with Funchal Bay below.
- Quinta das Cruzes · A manor on the site where Zarco, the island’s first captain, is said to have built his house, now a museum of the furniture and silver of the sugar and wine merchants. Some of the cabinets were made from the wood of sugar crates.
The roof of the island
Madeira is a volcano rising almost two kilometres straight from the sea, and its interior is all ridges, gorges and laurel forest. Its farmers watered it with levadas — channels cut along the cliffs that carry water from the rainy north to the dry south, more than two thousand kilometres of them, each with a path beside it. A full day and a car; the peaks may be above or inside the clouds.
- Eira do Serrado · A viewpoint on the rim above a deep valley closed on every side by mountains. When French corsairs sacked Funchal in 1566, the nuns of Santa Clara fled up here and hid in the valley below, which has been called the Nuns’ Valley ever since.
- Pico do Arieiro · The third-highest peak, at 1,818 metres, is reached by road, and at sunrise the sea of clouds lies below. From here a narrow trail of steps and tunnels runs along the ridge to Pico Ruivo, the highest summit at 1,862 metres.
- Ribeiro Frio · A hamlet in the laurel forest with a trout farm, and the start of a short, flat levada walk to the Balcões, a balcony over the gorges of the north. The laurel forest of Madeira is a relic of the forests that covered southern Europe millions of years ago, and a world heritage site since 1999.
- Santana · On the green north coast the farmers lived in small triangular houses, the walls almost all roof, thatched with straw and painted red, white and blue. A few still stand in the village as they were.
- Encumeada · A pass a thousand metres up in the spine of the island, from which on a clear day you see both the north and the south coasts at once. The clouds from the north often pour over it like a waterfall.
- Porto Moniz · At the north-western corner the lava cooled into rock basins at the sea’s edge, and the Atlantic waves wash over them and refill them. They have been made into swimming pools, with the open ocean breaking just beyond the wall.
Getting to Madeira and getting around
- Madeira Airport · Twenty-five minutes to Funchal; the runway stands partly on pillars over the sea
- Funchal Cable Car · From the seafront up to Monte in about fifteen minutes
- Marina do Funchal · Boats for dolphins and whales; the ferry to Porto Santo is at the port
Cheap eats in Madeira
Madeira eats standing at the bar: bolo do caco, a flat bread of sweet potato baked on a stone slab and spread with garlic butter; espetada, beef rubbed with garlic and grilled on skewers of bay laurel; limpets grilled in their shells with lemon. The drink is poncha — sugar-cane spirit beaten with honey and lemon with a wooden stick. A poncha and a bolo do caco cost a few euro.
- Câmara de Lobos · Poncha in the fishermen’s bars
- Mercado dos Lavradores · Passion fruit, custard apples and banana-passion fruit to taste
- Rua de Santa Maria · Espetada and bolo do caco among the painted doors
- Curral das Freiras · Chestnut cake and chestnut liqueur
- Porto Moniz · Grilled limpets by the lava pools
- Blandy’s Wine Lodge · A glass of Madeira and a slice of honey cake
Museums in Madeira
The museums of Madeira tell the story of an empty island that became a sugar colony worked by slaves, then a wine island for the English, then a winter resort for the rich and the sick — and the island where Cristiano Ronaldo was born.
- Museu da Baleia · From whaling village to whale reserve
- Museu CR7 · Ronaldo’s trophies in his home town
- Quinta das Cruzes · Furniture made from sugar-crate wood
- MUDAS · Contemporary art on a cliff
- Igreja do Monte · The exiled emperor’s tomb
Nature and day trips near Madeira
Madeira is walked along its levadas, the irrigation channels cut into the mountains since the fifteenth century, with a path beside each one: flat walks through laurel forest to waterfalls, past drops of hundreds of metres. Some need a head for heights and a torch for the tunnels.
- Levada das 25 Fontes · The classic levada; go early
- Queimadas · The Caldeirão Verde levada; bring a torch
- Pico do Arieiro · The ridge trail to Pico Ruivo
- Fanal · Ancient twisted laurels in the fog
- Ponta de São Lourenço · A bare red peninsula, the opposite of the forest
- Cabo Girão · A glass floor over a cliff of almost six hundred metres
Things to do in Madeira with kids
Madeira has few sandy beaches but plenty for children: a cable car, a wicker sled down the hill, lava tubes to walk through, natural rock pools and boats that go out to dolphins.
- Carreiros do Monte · The wicker toboggan ride
- Grutas de São Vicente · Walk inside a volcano’s lava tubes
- Porto Moniz · Swim in lava pools
- Marina do Funchal · Dolphin and whale boats
- Funchal Cable Car · Up the hill over the roofs
- Praia da Calheta · A calm sandy beach
Holy places in Madeira
Madeira’s faith centres on Our Lady of Monte, the island’s patroness, whose feast on the fifteenth of August brings pilgrims who climb the long stair to her church, some on their knees.
- Igreja do Monte · The island’s patroness; pilgrimage on 15 August
- Sé do Funchal · The cedar and ivory ceiling
- Convento de Santa Clara · Tiles and the tomb of the discoverer
- Machico · The chapel of the first landing
- Curral das Freiras · The valley where the nuns hid
Nightlife in Madeira
Funchal’s nights are gentle: dinner on the painted street, poncha in a fishermen’s bar, and the harbour. Once a year it explodes — the New Year’s Eve fireworks over the bay were once counted the largest in the world.
- Rua de Santa Maria · Dinner and bars on the painted street
- Câmara de Lobos · Poncha in the fishermen’s bars
- Marina do Funchal · Bars along the marina; the New Year fireworks
- Pico do Arieiro · Stars above the clouds
- Lido · Sunset drinks by the sea pools
Frequently asked questions about Madeira
What is there to see in Madeira?
The top sights in Madeira are Sé do Funchal, Rua de Santa Maria and Forte de São Tiago. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.
How many days do you need in Madeira?
Three to four days are enough to see the best of Madeira without rushing, including at least one walking tour.
Is there a free walking tour in Madeira?
Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Madeira, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: Old Funchal.
How do you get to Madeira and get around?
The main ways are Madeira Airport, Funchal Cable Car and Marina do Funchal. Full details are in the transport section on this page.
Where to stay in Madeira, and for how much?
sleepntrip shows only rooms in Madeira that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.
Looking for a hotel in Madeira for your dates?
Only rooms that meet nine conditions, up to $80 a night.