My wife and I don’t play soccer. We work in an office and travel twice a year, and when we travel we save money. We choose a country for a vacation based on the cost of flights, accommodation prices, the presence of mountains and water bodies.
I would also add a subjective factor to the criteria for choosing a country – the ability to surprise. In conditional Turkey, everything is included and clear: you eat five times a day, drink diluted beer or rakia, blush in the sun and post photos from the pool. The main thing is not to oversleep breakfast.
From the pictures of Madeira, we immediately realized that it was not like that there. Each new day on the island was different from the previous one. The scenery and weather changed. We swam in an ocean pool, tasted unusual fruits, explored levadas and looked at waterfalls. We drank port wine on the Atlantic Ocean: red, white and pink. Through rain and clouds, we climbed mountains.
What you need to know about Madeira
Madeira is called the island of eternal spring. It is +17…24 °C during the day all year round. The low season is from November to March. We arrived on the island at the end of November, and it was both +17 °C and +24 °C during the day.
Beach vacations are not common on the island. The ocean water is cold even in the high season from April to October. We met two sandy beaches with sand and safe access to the ocean: in Caleta and in Mashiku.
People don’t come to Madeira to swim, but to walk in the mountains and on the levadas. Nature is the main attraction of the island. But it requires activity: nature will not go under a recumbent tourist.
What you need to know about money
I recommend buying euros before traveling. Some guesthouses only accept payment in cash. We were not able to pay with a bank card in all stores.
The smaller the banknotes, the better. If you have a 500 € bill, you will be advised to fly to the mainland and change it there. In the guest house they did not take our 100 € banknote and asked us to change it in the store. We had to go and change it even though we had just arrived and wanted to rest.
What to buy before your trip
Madeira is in the subtropical zone, so the rain on the island starts and ends unexpectedly. We bought raincoats.
Wet raincoats are hard to pack compactly, so we opted for budget raincoats: they’re not too bad to throw away before the flight home.
Before the trip, we reviewed our shoe closet. Madeira will require a lot of walking on rocky terrain. In sneakers with soft soles, your feet will start to hurt, and high soles will prevent water from puddles. Shoes should also not be slippery: the rocks in the mountains get wet when it rains, so it’s easy to slip.
We did not buy Nordic walking poles. We saw one pensioner from Europe with Nordic walking poles on the levadas. Most people have enough legs for climbing mountains and walking on levadas.
The weather in Madeira changes several times a day. You will need both sunglasses with shorts and a fall hat with a jacket. We didn’t think about hats in advance, we bought them on the island.
In addition to the subtropical climate, the diversity of the landscape influences the frequent weather changes. By the ocean, you bask in the sun, while in the mountains it rains. The sun, clouds and rain change in seconds:
Before my flight, I downloaded a map of Madeira in the MAPS.ME app. It shows in detail the roads, streets of settlements and mountain trails. It works as a navigator, and builds routes – including hiking routes – without an internet connection.
We took a portable battery to the island and it came in handy. In the mountains we constantly used the maps on our phone so that we wouldn’t get lost, get off the right path and descend in the right place. Without a phone, you have to rely on yourself, and there are crossroads in the mountains.
How to plan a route
We planned the route in advance to understand where to rent accommodation and how to get from it to the natural sights. We planned to rent a car for two days and travel by bus for the rest of the time.
Your choice of transportation will determine where you should rent your accommodation. You can stay in one city and from there drive wherever you plan to go. But we usually rent several hotels on vacation and travel around the country by bus.
There is no one right itinerary. If you vacation for a month, you will have enough time to see all the sights of the island, but we had ten days. I will list in turn the towns and villages where we stayed: Mascica, Santo Antonio da Serra, Funchal – the administrative center of Madeira, Ponta do Pargo, Porto Moniz and Camizo.
One of Madeira’s bus carriers has posted a guide to the island .on its website It tells you about the sights and how to get there by bus. We downloaded the guide and printed out the useful pages.
So we gathered information about Madeira and chose the places we definitely want to visit: Cape San Lorenzo, the levadas of Caldeirao Verde and Ribeiro Frio, the peaks of the mountains of Picu Ruivo and Picu Areira, the ocean basins.
Based on this list, we made a travel plan. The logic of the plan is simple: see the most, spend less time and money on traveling. For example, we flew into Madeira airport and walked to the nearest town, Mascica. We walked for half an hour, taking into account stops for photography. We stayed in Mascica for one night.
We chose Mascica first because it is close to the airport. There is a sandy beach within the city limits, and it is also convenient to get to Cape San Lorenzo: only 25 minutes by bus, and from Funchal – 1 hour 20 minutes. A ticket from Mascicu to Cape San Lorenzo in 2023 costs 1,95 €, from Funchal – 4 €.
The eighth day was left in doubt. We did not book accommodation for this day in advance. We thought if it was sunny we would stay in Porto Moniz to swim in the ocean pools, but it rained. For such cases we made a list of reserve places where we could still go: the tropical garden and Monte Palace, the Eiro do Serrado lookout and the levada of 25 Fountains.
We ended up going back to Funchal instead of our second day in Porto Moniz and went to the Eiro do Serrado lookout.
Where to live
We wanted to explore most of the island, so we lived in different parts of Madeira. We chose our accommodation on Booking and Airbnb. The cost of the same accommodation options on different booking services sometimes differs. In ten days we stayed in two hostels, three hotels, one guest house and one cottage.
When booking, we took into account how to get from the hotel to the attractions of the island and what interesting things are near the hotel. In the town of Camizo we rented a room in Galo Resort Hotel Galosol in order to see the statue of Jesus Christ one kilometer away from the hotel. The statue did not impress: from the ground you can’t really look at it or take pictures. The hotel itself had poor noise insulation. In 2023 it has a different name – Sentido Galosol.
Got lucky with Residential Farol in the village of Ponta do Pargo. This quiet hotel is near the lighthouse, with a beautiful waterfall nearby.
We did not notice any specific features of accommodation on the island. In hostels, the rooms are clean, but the showers are not always clean. Large hotels have a swimming pool, sauna and buffet. The Quinta de Santo Antonio da Serra cottage was cozy due to the privacy and fireplace. The EcoDesign GuestHouse and the small hotel Residential Farol were run by the owners themselves, who try to please the tourists as much as possible. For example, the owner of Residential Farol gave us a free ride to the next town on our itinerary, Porto Moniz.
There are campgrounds near the town of Porto Moniz and Montado do Pereiro Park, but we didn’t consider camping for lodging.
How to get around the island
Initially we planned to rent a car from Funchalcarhire.net. But in the end it didn’t work out: I was afraid to drive because of the serpentine and narrow roads. As everywhere else, the cost of renting a car in Madeira depends on the number of days, seasonality, class of car and insurance.
Every hotel offered us to rent cars or advised us where and from whom to rent. But we traveled around the island by bus, sometimes by cab.
The only public transportation on the island is buses. There are three carriers on Madeira: SAM, Horarios do Funchal and Rodoeste. We installed SAM, SAM Madeira Bus’s GiroBus, and Horarios do Funchalapp before our trip They work without internet, show schedules, stop locations, and ticket prices.
With Horarios do Funchal, one trip around Funchal costs €1.95. If you make more than nine trips on the pass, the cost per trip is reduced to €1.25. An unlimited intercity pass for one day costs 12,5 €. We never managed to make that many trips in a day, so we didn’t buy such a pass.
There are enough buses to get to most attractions, but in some cases we had to order a cab. “There is no Uber in Madeira. There are classic yellow cabs, payment is cash only. It is more profitable to agree in advance on the cost of the trip, rather than driving on the meter.
We used cabs four times. Once we returned from the soccer stadium with a meter. We paid 13 € for 8 km.
The second time without a meter we got to Picu Areiro, from which the route to the highest point of the island – to Picu Ruivu – starts. 35 € for 20 km. On weekdays such a route would cost 25 €. We were going on a Friday, but we fell on a holiday – Independence Restoration Day – and paid the weekend price.
We paid 10 € per 4 km for the access to the beginning of the Caldeirao Verde levada. The price is fixed. We could not find any other way to get there, so we walked back down.
On the last day we took a cab back to the airport: 15 € for 11 km. The hotel offered to call us a cab for 20 €, but we had only 17 € left. At the nearest souvenir store we asked for help with the cab – a girl called and agreed on 15 €. The driver kept the meter on: he said it was in case the police stopped us. We made 28 € on the meter, but paid the price we had agreed on.
Food and drink
One of the supermarkets in Madeira is Pingo Doce. Its culinary shop offers delicious food, and after 21:00 they give a 50% discount on ready meals. It’s not what you buy that counts, but the weight. You’ll pay the same for a kilo of pasta or mussels.
In Funchal there is a chain of supermarkets called Pingo Doce. We have also seen these stores in other areas of Madeira.
We spent 4 nights in Funchal and had dinner at Pingo Doce three times. After 21:00 we paid 6 € for a large plate of shrimp. Wine, madera and port were sold on tap in the cooking section.
In supermarkets a bottle of fortified wine in 2023 costs from 8 €. In Portugal, the most popular fortified wines are port wine and madera. In 2015 we traveled in mainland Portugal, port is more common there, port or porto is written on port bottles. In Madeira, they mostly sell madera.
On the first day we bought three bottles of wine: for 2 €, 3 € and 4 €. We didn’t feel any difference, the next time we went to the store we bought the 2 € variant.
The Lavradores farmers’ market in Funchal sells vegetables and exotic fruits. Madeira likes to crossbreed fruits, especially passion fruit. A kilogram of the results of such genetic experiments cost between 8€ and 30€ in 2017. We bought one mix of passion fruit with tangerine, one mix of passion fruit with pineapple and one “bananas”. We gave away 14 €.
Bananas are banana and pineapple in one fruit. The fruit is delicious, but expensive. A kilogram of regular bananas in a supermarket in 2023 costs 2 €.
Anona fruit is sold in stores and markets. When we stayed overnight at Residential Farol, these anonas were growing anonymously along the road. We ate them for free. It tastes like sweet zucchini.
Several times we had dinner and lunch in cafes and restaurants. The portions are large, enough for two or even three people. They leave the standard 10% for tea.
Routes through the levadas
The main attraction in Madeira is walking through the mountains and levadas. There are levadas of varying length and complexity all over the island. Popular among tourists are the Caldeirao Verde, Ribeiro Frio and 25 Fountains levadas. Entrance to all of them is free of charge.
We passed through the Caldeirao Verde and Ribeiro Frio levadas. We reached the summits of the Picu Ruivo and Picu Areira mountains. We saw the capes of San Lorenzo and Cabo Girao. We took photos at the Balcois and Eiro do Serrado viewpoints.
Of the hiking routes, the Caldeirao Verde levada walk, the road to Cape San Lorenzo and the climb to Pica Ruyva were most enjoyed. Recommended.
On our first day in Madeira, we drove to Cape San Lorenzo. In the town of Mashiku we checked into a guest house, went to the store for groceries and went to the bus station. Bus 113 takes you to the start of the hiking route to Cape San Lorenzo: stop Baía D’Abra. The one-way fare paid 1,3 € a person. In 2023 it costs 1,95 €.
There are no cafes or stores along the way, so the water and snacks we brought with us came in handy. The round trip took four hours. There were fewer tourists on the levadas and in the mountains than on San Lorenzo.
On the fifth day of the trip we went to the Caldeirao Verde Levada. From Funchal to the town of Santana we took bus number 56. A ticket in 2023 costs 4,7 €.
In Santana, cabs are on duty near the bus stop. You can’t get to the beginning of Caldeirao Verde on foot, you have to climb a steep mountain for 4 km. We took a cab and walked back down to Santana: it was easier going down than going up.
At the entrance to the levada there is a cafe and an open toilet. There are no cafes or toilets on the way. We took food and water with us. Tourists organized toilet places in the crevices of rocks. The sun was shining in Santana and it was raining on the levada.
On our penultimate day on the island we conquered Madeira’s highest point, Pica Ruivo. It is 1862 meters high.
We started our ascent to Picu Ruivu from Picu Areiru, we reached it by cab. Further hiking route: from Picu Areiru to Picu Ruivu and down from Picu Ruivu to the village of Faya das Cardos.
In good weather, the mountain views are already at Pica Areira. We got caught in the rain. We had watched the webcam from the mountains in advance and knew about the rain, but decided not to leave the climb for the day of departure.
There are no stores or cafes on the way from Picu Areiro to Picu Ruivu. There is an open toilet at Picu Ruivu itself.
It took 9 hours to walk 10 km. There are 3 roads leading from Piku Ruivu to the village of Faya das Kardos. We chose the shortest in terms of distance, but the most difficult in terms of landscape. Due to sharp descents and crossing a mountain river, 3 km were covered in 3 hours.
Other Madeira activities
Ocean pools. It is cold to swim in the ocean. Tourists swim in ocean pools.
In sunny weather, the ocean is calm and cold waves rarely hit the pool. The water in the pool itself has time to warm up during the day, and it is warmer to swim there than in the open ocean. To enter the paid pool in 2017 cost 1,5 €. The price includes a changing room and trips to the restroom. We also swam in the free ocean pool, which has no facilities.
Soccer. The local airport in Madeira has been renamed in honor of footballer Cristiano Ronaldo. In addition to the airport, the island also opened a museum of the footballer – CR7 Museum. We didn’t go to the museum, we regretted 5 € for the entrance and limited ourselves to a photo of the monument. For good luck, tourists rub the footballer’s hands and for some reason his penis.
Instead of the museum, we went to a soccer match. The teams playing were from the second Portuguese league: Unian vs. Nacional. The Estadio Da Madeira stadium is on the outskirts of Funchal. It is better to drive there: you will have to walk 4 km uphill.
The stadium ticket office asked for 15 € for a seat in the center stand. 10 € for a seat in the side stand and 5 € for a seat in the visitors’ section.
Santa Maria Street in Funchal. On Friday and Saturday, restaurants play Fado, the national Portuguese chant. Restaurants invite you to dinner and the competitive advantage is to offer fado. You order your food and listen to the songs. The entertainment is for the amateur, the songs are sad.
Singing Fado on Santa Maria Street in Funchal. The street is also famous for street art painted on doors.
Souvenirs. Souvenir bottles of madera or port wine are a good deal at the supermarket. A set of four 50 ml bottles of 2023 costs 8 €.
We also bought a local hat, each for 5€. The hats are warm, woolen. It is cool in the mountains, so locals wear them when they go to the mountains. We judged the expensiveness of the souvenir stores by the price of the hats. If they were more expensive than 5 €, it means that the rest of the goods were overpriced. In one store similar hats were sold for 20 €. In 2023 such hats cost 8 €.
Memorize
- During the low season – November through March – airlines sometimes significantly reduce the cost of flights.
- You can do without renting a car; bus routes cover most of the island.
- It is better to think over the itinerary in advance and book hotels based on it.
- It’s definitely going to rain, raincoats will save the day.
- It’s cold to swim in the ocean, but tourists swim in the ocean pools.
- The main entertainment is walking in the mountains and levadas. It is necessary to prepare your shoes and feet.
- In Madeira they write madeira on the bottles of fortified wine. This drink is madeira. In mainland Portugal, port wine is more common, and bottles of port wine are labeled port or porto.
