Planning your trip to Madeira

By air, to Madeira Cristiano Ronaldo international airport, in the municipality of Santa Cruz. It is the usual way to reach the archipelago. An Aerobus shuttle links the airport to Funchal in 20 to 25 minutes; taxis, private transfers and rental cars complete the picture.

Yes. The Lobo Marinho links Funchal harbour to Porto Santo, a crossing of 71 km. Timetables and fares are published by the operator, Porto Santo Line; residents pay a reduced fare.

Partly. The SIGA network, the Region's integrated public transport system, links the municipalities and covers Funchal well within the city. Taxis, represented by AITRAM, along with Uber and Bolt, complete the offer on Madeira island. Remote trailheads remain hard to reach by public transport.

No. None of Madeira's expressways or main roads is tolled. GPS works well on the island.

The road markings give the rule: white is free, sometimes reserved for residents; blue is paid; yellow is forbidden. Blue bays are chargeable Monday to Friday from 8 am to 8 pm and Saturday from 8 am to 2 pm, free on Sundays and public holidays. Pay at the machine or with the iPark Driver app.

Seven. The best known climbs from Funchal, Rua Dom Carlos I, to Monte, Largo das Babosas. Six others reach places no road serves: the Botanical Garden, Garajau, Rocha do Navio, Fajã dos Padres, Achadas da Cruz and Fajãs do Cabo Girão. Each is run separately, with its own hours.

€16 one way and €22 return, free up to 6 years old and half price from 7 to 14. It runs from 8.45 am to 5.45 pm every day except Christmas Day. E-tickets stay valid for 60 days and give direct access to boarding. Fares recorded on 4 September 2026.

The euro, the official currency since January 2002. Cards are accepted in most places. Residents from outside the European Union can claim VAT refunds in shops offering tax free.

Not for European appliances: 220 V, 50 Hz, European standard sockets.

112, the single European number, for emergencies only. The archipelago's main hospital is Dr. Nélio Mendonça hospital in Funchal, Av. Luís de Camões 57.

Not everywhere. Rescue operations launched off the official trails are charged for. Staying on waymarked routes is therefore also a matter of cost.

It depends what you come for, and the answer changes from one zone to the next. For Funchal bay, May to October for the sea and the warmth, March to May for walking without August's heat. For the levadas of the northern laurel belt, April to June. For the summit crossing, May to September. On the south-west coast the sun is there all year.

On the meteorological institute 1991-2020 climate normal at the Funchal/Observatório station, the annual mean is 20.0 °C, with 17.1 °C in January and 23.7 °C in August. Mean maxima reach 22.9 °C over the year, and the station records 104.1 days a year at 25 °C or above. The recorded extremes are 38.2 °C and 8.5 °C.

Little, and very unevenly across the months: 574.3 mm a year on the 1991-2020 normal, of which 94.8 mm in December, the wettest month, and 1.3 mm in August, the driest. The station records 53.4 days a year with at least 1 mm of rain.

Because the relief splits the island into two regimes. The north takes the moist winds and stays green and very wet, especially in winter; the sheltered south is dry and sunny. The Weather page describes the island's ten climate zones, with their usual conditions and best months.

Change slope. The south-west coast, around Ponta do Sol and Calheta, is the fallback: it is the warmest and sunniest part of the island, with sun all year round.

Yes, and the gap with the coast is large. On Paul da Serra and Bica da Cana, around 1,500 m, fog and frost are frequent outside the May to September window. On the central massif, around Pico do Areeiro and Pico Ruivo, the summit crossing is done from May to September, setting off at dawn.

Twenty ready-to-follow itineraries, from one to five days, in five profiles: hiker, relaxation, adventure, family and discovery. A week is enough to see both slopes without rushing.

Do not walk alone, tell someone your route, finish before dark, carry spare water and food, and give up in heavy rain, wind or hail. Access to the classified trails is booked and paid on SIMplifica.

Yes, since 1 January 2026, on the classified walking trails: €4.50 per visitor over 12, €10.50 for the full PR 1 crossing, free for residents and children up to 12. Booking and payment are on SIMplifica, and registration is compulsory.

Thirty-nine classified PR trails, from PR 1 to PR 28, variants included: ten easy, twenty-eight moderate, one hard. Alongside them, seventeen waymarked trail-running routes and eight mountain-bike routes, with no booking and no fee — but no PR waymarking either.

Caminho do Pináculo e Folhadal, 15 km. The biggest climb belongs to Vereda da Ilha, with 1,274 m of ascent.

The official status of every trail is published and updated after storms and works: you will find it live on the Trails page. Check before every outing, as the status changes quickly.

Yes, with an a licence from the regional forestry institute applied for on simplifica.madeira.gov.pt: €5 per tent per night, free for residents. Carry the document for the forest police.

Only with prior regional forestry institute approval. A regional decree of 14 August 2008 requires authorisation for any leisure or sporting activity and any vehicle traffic in forest areas.

An irrigation channel carrying water from the wet north to the dry south and to the terraced fields. The path alongside exists first for maintenance; it became the island's typical way of walking.

A subtropical laurel forest, the remnant of a vegetation cover that clothed southern Europe some twenty million years ago. It still occupies nearly 20 % of the island, about 15,000 hectares, and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since December 1999.

Pico Ruivo, 1,862 m: the archipelago's summit and the third highest in Portugal. Pico do Areeiro reaches 1,818 m and Pico das Torres 1,851 m; the three are linked by the summit crossing.

It rises 580 m above the sea, making it one of Europe's highest sea cliffs. A glass-floored platform lets you look straight down; a protected area, marine and terrestrial, has surrounded it since 2016.

Entirely. The São Vicente caves keep the clearest trace: they came from an eruption of Paul da Serra about 890,000 years ago. The surface of the flow, cooling faster, solidified while lava kept running inside, leaving tunnels; the underground route is about 700 m long.

They have accumulated since 1971: the Selvagens listed that year, the Garajau marine reserve in 1986, the Desertas in a special protection area in 1990 and a nature reserve in 1995, Rocha do Navio in 1997, the Laurissilva at UNESCO in 1999, Santana a biosphere reserve in 2011, Porto Santo in 2020, and the Cabo Girão area in 2016 and Ponta do Pargo in 2018.

A small archipelago 250 km south of Madeira, made a nature reserve in 1971: 273 hectares, one of Portugal's oldest reserves and its southernmost territory.

The Desertas hold one of its last strongholds. The islands have been in a special protection area since 1990 and a nature reserve since 1995, and belong to the Natura 2000 network; access is controlled.

Created in 1960 above Funchal, it gathers species from all over the world, some of them endangered. A cable car serves it.

UNESCO granted it the distinction in 2011. The municipality covers 96.2 km², climbs from the coast to Pico Ruivo, 1,862 m, and Pico do Areeiro, 1,818 m, and has more than 120 km of trails; it was also the first city proclaimed in the 21st century, on 1 January 2001.

The official bathing season runs from 15 April to 15 October. That is the window used for the natural pools of the north-west, at Porto Moniz and Seixal.

Few, and most are man-made. Calheta beach, opened in 2004, was Madeira's first artificial beach, with golden sand imported from Morocco. Elsewhere the coast is pebbles, rock and bathing complexes. Fourteen bathing sites on the island fly the 2026 Blue Flag.

Basins carved by the sea in the lava and fitted out for swimming. The best known are at Porto Moniz. Those at Seixal, the Poças das Lesmas, have had lifeguard supervision since 2024, which is why an entrance fee applies.

The Garajau Partial Nature Reserve, on the island's south coast, was the first exclusively marine reserve created in Portugal, in 1986. It protects rich biodiversity and prevents the seabed from being stripped.

Bolo do caco, flatbread with garlic butter; espetada, beef skewered on a bay stick; filete de espada, the black scabbardfish from deep water; grilled limpets; milho frito; and poncha. The Food page describes 50 specialities, dishes, products and drinks included.

The island's drink: cane spirit, honey and citrus, stirred with the mexelhote, a wooden muddler. Poncha à pescador, the oldest, uses lemon; the passion-fruit version is the sweetest, and other variants circulate. It often comes with a dentinho, the small bite served alongside.

A fortified, heated wine that can age for decades. Four noble grapes give four styles, from driest to sweetest: sercial as an aperitif, verdelho at table, boal with roasts and desserts, malvasia with pudding. Terrantez is rare and vintage-dated, and tinta negra supplies the bulk of production. It was chosen to toast United States independence on 4 July 1776.

In poios, the narrow terraces held by dry-stone walls that climb the slopes. Harvest runs from late August into September. The parish of Estreito de Câmara de Lobos, created around 1509, supplies much of the grape for Madeira wine.

Yes. For still wine, the Madeirense protected designation and the Terras Madeirenses protected indication. For fruit, the Madeira banana holds a protected indication and the custard apple a protected designation. Agricultural rum comes both unaged and aged.

Carne de vinha d'alhos, pork marinated in wine and garlic, now eaten all year but tied to Christmas, and its sandwich in bolo do caco, the speciality of the Noite do Mercado. Bolo de mel, the cane honey cake, and palitos de cerveja go with the season.

To Curral das Freiras in November, for the Chestnut Festival, and to the magustos held in several municipalities at the same season. The Madeira chestnut is harvested from October to November. Curral also makes ginjinha, a cherry liqueur, the cherries being picked in June and July.

In 1418 the navigators led by João Gonçalves Zarco first sighted Porto Santo. The following year they reached Madeira: on 1 July 1419 they anchored in Machico bay and landed the next day, when the first mass was said on the island. Settlement began in 1425 by royal order.

From the abundance of timber: the island was covered in dense forest, and the discoverers named it after that raw material. Funchal, for its part, takes its name from the wild fennel that covered the site.

The archipelago's administrative division between great grantees. Machico came first, on 8 May 1440, when Prince Henry granted it to Tristão Vaz and his descendants: it ran from Ponta da Oliveira at Caniço to Ponta de São Lourenço, then to Ponta do Tristão at Porto Moniz. Porto Santo followed in 1446 and Funchal in 1450.

Sugar, which made the island's fortune in the 15th and 16th centuries. In 1494 the captaincy of Machico alone supplied about a fifth of the region's output, and canon Jerónimo Dias Leite places there the first Madeiran sugar ever sold. Campo do Duque, marked out in Funchal on 4 June 1485, was named after the first cane cuttings acclimatised there, brought from Sicily.

Since 21 August 1508, by royal charter of King Manuel I: the first city of Portugal's great 16th-century expansion. It had become a town around 1453-1454, by charter of King Afonso V.

Yes. In 1566 corsairs attacked Funchal; the Santa Clara nuns took refuge at Curral das Freiras, invisible from the sea. In 1917 two submarines shelled Funchal, an episode that gave rise to the vow of Nossa Senhora da Paz.

Since 1 July 1976: Madeira became an autonomous region of Portugal, and adopted a flag in 1978.

A storm of exceptional violence caused the aluvião: floods and mudslides killed about 32 people. The island had already suffered a comparable disaster in October 1803, which devastated Funchal, Machico and Ribeira Brava.

Two military occupations, between 1801 and 1814, left a lasting community. São Tiago fort then served as headquarters and later as a prison. The wine trade did the rest: the Blandy family acquired the Palheiro gardens in 1885, and Madeira wine was chosen to toast United States independence on 4 July 1776.

The casas de Santana, small triangular houses whose thatched roof reaches the ground, are the most recognisable image of the island's rural architecture. They can be visited in the municipality of Santana, a UNESCO biosphere reserve since 2011.

From Camacha, where the wicker industry began in 1850. After a complex treatment the material yields baskets, furniture and the Monte basket sledges; production remains largely family-based.

Wicker sledges that run down the street from Monte, pushed by two men dressed in white. They carry on the Camacha wickerwork tradition, born in 1850. Monte is reached from Funchal by the cable car on Rua Dom Carlos I.

Yes, though much reduced. A genuine piece carries a guarantee seal.

The regional culture directorate runs several. The Madeira Ethnographic Museum occupies, at Ribeira Brava, a house enlarged in 1682 and turned into a sugar works in 1853. The Frederico de Freitas house-museum, opened in 1988 and completed in 1999, holds an exceptional tile collection. Mudas, at Calheta, opened on 8 October 2015 in Paulo David's Casa das Mudas. The Whale Museum, at Caniçal, has occupied a new building since 2011.

The cathedral, Gothic and Manueline, built from 1493 to 1514 and a National Monument since 1910; the town hall, in the 1758 Carvalhal Esmeraldo palace bought by the city in 1883; the Lavradores market, opened on 24 November 1940 with its great tile panels; the Baltazar Dias theatre of 1888. São Tiago fort, begun in mid-1614; and São Lourenço palace, completed between 1580 and 1640 and listed a National Monument in 1943.

Yes. In January 1950, sitting at the Espírito Santo viewpoint facing the sea, Winston Churchill set up his easel and painted the bay of Câmara de Lobos. The picture fixed the image of the small fishing harbour for good.

Empress Elisabeth of Austria, «Sissi», was photographed on the island in 1860 by Vicente Gomes da Silva, who was made photographer to Her Majesty in 1866. King Carlos of Braganza and Queen Amélia visited in 1901. And Emperor Charles I of Austria died in exile at Quinta do Monte in 1922.

Ten on Madeira island, plus Porto Santo, making eleven for the Region; they share 53 parishes on Madeira island. Each municipality has its page: area, population, parishes, history and places to see.

Calheta, 116 km², about 15 % of the island, with eight parishes. Then come Santana with 96.2 km² and Porto Moniz with 80.4 km². Funchal, 76.15 km², is the most populous and has ten parishes.

250,744 for the Region at the 2021 census, 6.4 % fewer than in 2011. Câmara de Lobos is close to 40,000 inhabitants with a density of 617.98 per km², the island's highest. Porto Moniz had only 2,927 at the 2001 census.

Ribeira Brava, created on 6 May 1914 by splitting the municipalities of Ponta do Sol and Câmara de Lobos, the latter losing Campanário. It was raised to town status on 29 March 1928.

Câmara de Lobos and Calheta, both around 1430, are among the first. Then Arco da Calheta in 1472, Estreito de Câmara de Lobos around 1509, Faial on 20 February 1550, Ponta Delgada the same year, São Gonçalo in 1558 and Santana on 2 June 1564. The newest is Ilha, created in 1989.

Because in 1480 the second captain-donatary of Funchal, João Gonçalves da Câmara, bought this vast estate and gave it to his daughters Elvira and Joana, professed nuns at Santa Clara. The place, until then plain «Curral», took their name. In 1566 the convent's nuns took refuge there during the corsair attack: the valley, hidden among the mountains, cannot be seen from the sea.

It is the island's eastern tip, about 9 km long, bare and semi-arid: no forest, no shade, a landscape of red cliffs unlike anywhere else. The best window is March to June and September to October, avoiding the heat and total lack of shade of July and August.

99 events in the year, 77 of them with dates announced by their organiser: from village feast to international festival, across all twelve months and all ten municipalities.

Funchal makes it a February highlight, with the Cortejo Alegórico, the great costumed parade, then the Cortejo Trapalhão, the comic parade open to all, a few days later. Malassadas are eaten at this time.

Funchal's spring event, built around the Wall of Hope raised by children and the great allegorical Flower Parade. The Madeira Flower Collection, a flower-inspired fashion show, joins it in May.

The Atlantic Festival, with the international fireworks competition lighting the bay, and the regional arts week. Machico holds its 16th-century market at the same time, and both Calheta and Ribeira Brava celebrate their municipal day.

The open-air village patron feast, with music, espetada and poncha. Summer concentrates the most of them, in nearly every municipality. Among the busiest are Nossa Senhora do Monte in Funchal, in August, and Nossa Senhora da Graça at Câmara de Lobos.

Late August and early September, in Funchal and Câmara de Lobos, with the living harvest at Estreito, concerts in the vineyards and the Blandy's Wine Festival. Santana holds its Grape and Farmer Festival at the same time.

It starts on 1 December with Funchal's lights and Christmas market, continues with the Missas do Parto from 15 December, the Noite do Mercado on Christmas Eve, São Vicente's sweets fair, and ends with the New Year fireworks over the bay and the 31 December show.

Yes. The MIUT, Madeira Island Ultra Trail, crosses the island from Porto Moniz to Machico in April. TransMadeira in September and the São Vicente canyoning meeting in October fill out the calendar, along with several autumn car rallies.

The Panelo Festival at Seixal, in the municipality of Porto Moniz, on the second-to-last weekend of January: a stew of vegetables, meats and grains shared by the village. The Chants of the Epiphany open the month in Funchal, and the Compadres feast animates Santana.