Madeira facts and curiosities

1 July 1419 — Anchor in the bay

Rounding Ponta de São Lourenço, João Gonçalves Zarco anchored in the bay of Machico, chosen for its shelter. The crew spent the night on board and landed only the next day, on an island covered by the dense woodland that would give it its name.

1480 — The nuns' corral

The second captain-donatary of Funchal, João Gonçalves da Câmara, bought the vast Curral estate and gave it to his daughters Elvira and Joana, professed nuns at Santa Clara. The place, until then plain «Curral» and a centre of sheep and goat pasture, then took the name Curral das Freiras.

1540 — The image from the sea

Tradition says the image of Senhor Bom Jesus reached Ponta Delgada in a chest washed up on the beach. The parish patron is celebrated on 1 January, and the great Bom Jesus arraial on the first weekend of September has drawn pilgrims from across the island since the 16th century.

1566 — The corsairs — Attack on Funchal; the nuns take refuge at Curral das Freiras

The nuns of the Santa Clara convent fled to the valley invisible from the sea that would take their name. The belt of forts that followed — Palácio de São Lourenço (16th c.), Fortaleza de São Tiago (1614), São José (18th c.), São Bento at Ribeira Brava (1708), Reis Magos and Fortim do Faial (18th c.) — answered these raids.

end of the 17th century — The flood and the image

A flood swept vestments from the church of São Vicente, including an image of the patron saint, into the river. When the waters fell, the image was found unharmed at the foot of a boulder: the people raised there the chapel cut into the rock still visited today.

17th–18th centuries — Wine — A new economic cycle, up to the toast of 1776

Wine replaced sugar as the main export from the late 16th century; it was already being exported twenty-five years after settlement began and was used to toast the independence of the United States on 4 July 1776. The island's oldest cellars, at the Adegas de São Francisco, date from the 17th and 18th centuries.

Caves and fossils — 890,000-year-old lava tubes at São Vicente; 5-million-year-old marine fossils at Lameiros; 300,000-year-old fossil dunes at Piedade

The São Vicente caves, born of an eruption on Paul da Serra, can be visited along 700 m; the Rota da Cal shows limestones and fossils more than five million years old; the Piedade dunes at Ponta de São Lourenço keep fossilised roots unique in Europe. Basalt columns at Foz da Ribeira do Faial, the hanging river mouth of Véu da Noiva, a listed lava flow at Foz da Ribeira da Janela.

Two sides, two climates — The rainy north feeds the dry south through the levadas

The range blocks the trade winds: the north and the heights receive the rain and fog that the Laurissilva captures, the south is warm and dry — hence, from the earliest settlement, the channels carrying water from north to south. Snow is possible in winter on the massif, where the regional forestry institute's describes long white blankets.

World Heritage — Inscribed by UNESCO in December 1999; 25 years celebrated in 2024–2025

Portugal's only property in the natural heritage category to date; the 25th-anniversary programme closed on 24 November 2025 at Torre do Capitão (Santo Amaro). Its use is governed by the Laurissilva management plan.

The water factory — Fog condenses on the leaves and feeds springs and levadas

The great efficiency of these plants in holding the water of fog and rain governs the island's water balance: the levadas draw their water from the springs of the primitive forest. The 25 Fontes, a suspended aquifer listed as a geosite, are the textbook example.

Miocene and Pliocene — A forest of the Tertiary, a "living fossil"

The Laurissilva goes back to the Miocene and Pliocene of the Tertiary. Being a living fossil takes nothing from its vigour: it goes on growing, holding water and sheltering species found nowhere else.

How many — 103 main publicly managed levadas

Figure from the UNESCO nomination file prepared by the Regional Government; eight of them, totalling 25.20 ha of nominated property and a 7,584 ha buffer zone, represent the whole. They serve human consumption, irrigation, traditional mills, electricity generation and walking.

1855 — Túnel das Estrebarias — For the first time, northern water crosses the island to the south

The "Furado Velho" of the Levada do Risco (Levada Velha do Rabaçal, built 1835–1860, 7.15 km) opened the crossings under the ridge; its madre lies at Fontes do Risco, at 1,038 m.

1958–1966 — Levada dos Tornos — 63 km, the island's longest; 17.18 km northern section with three tunnels

Rising at the Ribeira dos Tornos (Boaventura, 660 m), it feeds the Fajã da Nogueira power plant and then the municipalities of Funchal, Santa Cruz and Machico for drinking water and irrigation — a leap in habitability for the south-east coast.

The icons — Santana houses, Monte sledges, cable car, Santana Biosphere Reserve (2011)

Triangular houses of wood and thatch, wicker sledges pushed by two carreiros since the 19th century, an Italian-style theatre of 1888, the country's oldest photo studio (1865), Funchal's museums, Casa das Mudas at Calheta, the Ethnographic Museum at Ribeira Brava, the Whale Museum at Caniçal.

Homo Faber, Chanel — The embroidery on the catwalks

Madeira embroidery has recently been shown at Homo Faber, Europe's largest craft fair, at Paris Fashion Week thanks to Chanel, and in the collections of the American designer Jeff Garner.

1850 — Camacha wicker — An industry born in a single parish

The wicker industry, born in Camacha, began in 1850. After a complex treatment the material allows baskets, furniture and the famous Monte basket sledges to be made. Production remains overwhelmingly family-based.

1,700 rose varieties — The Quinta do Arco rose garden, at São Jorge

On the north coast, Quinta do Arco gathers more than 1,700 different species and varieties of rose — a collection presented as unique in Europe and in the world.

Leaving from Calheta — The municipality that emigrated most

Calheta is, according to its own Câmara, probably the municipality that sent the most Madeirans to every corner of the world. Emigration has left a lasting mark on the island's west, on its houses and on its returns.

The bread — Bolo do caco: baked on a basalt stone, born in Porto Santo

Sweet potato in the dough, a crisp crust, garlic-and-parsley butter: alongside espetada, limpets or as a prego.

Drinks — Poncha, nikita, laranjada (1872), Brisa Maracujá (1970), Coral beer, rum, Madeira wine

Poncha, born in the 18th century at Câmara de Lobos to warm the fishermen, is whisked with the mexelhote and served with a dentinho; laranjada is one of the world's oldest soft drinks and Brisa the first with pure passion-fruit juice; nikita blends ice cream, pineapple and beer.

Canteiro or estufagem — Slow ageing in casks on the "canteiros" or heating at about 50 °C for three months

The name "canteiro" refers to the beams that hold the casks in the lodges, where the noble grapes age naturally; estufagem, applied to most wines, reproduces in heated vats the effect of the long sea voyages that once improved the "torna-viagem" wines. Fortified with grape spirit, 17 to 22 % vol.

Rocha do Navio — Exclusively marine reserve wanted by the people of Santana (1997), 1,822 ha

A response to the degradation of resources by destructive fishing; includes Ilhéu da Viúva and Ilhéu da Rocha das Vinhas; access by a steep path or the cable car, sea often rough.

Whaling — 1941–1981 at Caniçal; voluntary end; museum created on 26 February 1990, new building on 2 September 2011

Forty years of whaling whose tools and stories the Machico municipal museum keeps, with life-size models and 3D films; the 1981 halt followed the ban on marketing whale products by several countries and the decline in sightings.

Water temperature — 18 to 24 °C depending on the season (Vigário); 20–21 °C on average at Porto Moniz; above 24 °C in summer at Fajã dos Padres

The south is calmer, the north rougher — surfers head for Jardim do Mar, Paul do Mar, São Vicente and Porto da Cruz.

Lycosa ingens — The Desertas tarantula

An endemic species, the Desertas tarantula lives in the Castanheira valley on Deserta Grande, the largest of the three islands. The Desertas are also an important nesting centre for seabirds.

The last stronghold — The Mediterranean monk seal

The Desertas are described as one of the last strongholds of the Mediterranean monk seal, one of the most threatened marine mammals in the world. It is for its sake that protection of the islands was tightened from 1990.

Sand — Black and natural at Seixal, Alagoa and Prainha; golden and imported from Morocco at Calheta (2004) and Machico

Praia Formosa, the largest public beach, lines up more than 2 km of pebbles and black sand west of Funchal. Calheta was the island's first artificial beach.

Coves apart — Fajã dos Padres and Garajau by cable car. Calhau da Lapa by path or boat

Below a 250 m cliff, Fajã dos Padres and its sea above 24 °C in summer. Garajau beach, inside the reserve, for diving. Calhau da Lapa, reported temporarily closed.

The PR 1 crossing — Areeiro → Ruivo one-way; exit by PR 1.2 or PR 1.1; no return shuttle

Since 1 May 2026 the Pedra Rija – Pico Ruivo section can only be walked Areeiro → Ruivo; you go down to Achada do Teixeira or Ilha and arrange your own transport. PR 1.3 to Encumeada stays closed beyond Boca das Torrinhas: no east–west crossing on classified trails is possible for now.