Skip to content
Explore Madeira

📡 Today's status

The IFCN's official status, read every day. Green only when the IFCN writes « aberto » with no reserve.

● Partially closed« (Transitável desde a Boca da Corrida até ao km 3,5) » — IFCN

The old cobbled royal road that skirted the central massif: 12.5 km from the Boca da Corrida viewpoint to Encumeada (ER 228), 5 h, moderate, between 830 and 1,323 m, at the foot of the archipelago's highest peaks. This "caminho real" was one of the region's main routes: landowners rode it on horseback, their wives lying in hammocks carried by men, and a grocery served as a staging post for travellers crossing the island. The path reveals the parish of Curral das Freiras, a village buried among the mountains that sheltered the nuns of the Santa Clara convent during the pirate attack on Funchal in 1566, then crosses the streams that cut into the mountain under the Laurissilva and rounds Pico Grande; the appearance of Serra d'Água and Encumeada announces the end. In 2026 only the section from Boca da Corrida to km 3.5 is passable: the official lists it as partially open, out-and-back from the viewpoint only.

Highlights

  • Cobbled royal road
  • Boca da Corrida
  • Curral das Freiras
  • Pico Grande
  • Open to km 3.5
Difficulty
Moderate
Length
12.5 km
Elevation gain
493 m
Duration
5 h
Price
€4.50 (over 12) · SIMplifica booking · free for residents and under-13s
Municipality
Câmara de Lobos
🎟️ Book on SIMplifica🗺️ See the route on the map📍 Start🏁 End

Track for guidance only.

Places within 2 km of the route

  • 🌿 Nature

    Parque Florestal do Chão dos Louros

    In the heart of the Laurissilva, a World Heritage site since December 1999, on the ER 104 that drops from Encumeada to São Vicente: laurels often bearing the "madre-de-louro" caused by a fungus, tils, rarer vinháticos, folhados, sanguinhos, faias-das-ilhas, heaths and uveiras whose berries go into jams; the endemic firecrest, chaffinch and trocaz pigeon. Tables and benches, fountains, fireplaces and lawns make it one of the forest leisure spots most sought after by Madeirans; the PR 22 Vereda do Chão dos Louros loop (1.9 km) goes round it, with a lookout over the São Vicente valley and a link to PR 21. Free parking, paid toilets.

    🗺️ See it on the map
  • 🌿 Nature

    Fajã dos Vinháticos

    Geosite in the parish of Serra de Água (Ribeira Brava). of the regional inventory: the best place to see the volcanic and sedimentary layers of the Encumeada Formation, whose reference section it is. About 600 m on foot along the road: mind the traffic.

    🗺️ See it on the map
  • 🏛️ Culture

    Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Livramento (Curral das Freiras)

    The only piece of historic heritage in Curral das Freiras, built in the early nineteenth century. The place had a chapel from the mid-seventeenth century; a growing population and the distance from the parish of Santo António pushed for independence, granted on 17 March 1790 by charter of Queen Maria I. The ruined Santo António chapel could not serve as a seat, so the church was built. The high altar and the side altars to Our Lady of Livramento and the Sacred Heart date from the major works of the early twentieth century.

    🗺️ See it on the map
  • 📍 Sítio

    Curral das Freiras

    The most picturesque village of the interior, at the bottom of a deep valley that resembles a crater, ringed by the peaks of the central massif: 25.07 km² and about 2,000 inhabitants, the largest parish of the municipality of Câmara de Lobos. Its name comes from the nuns of the Santa Clara convent who took refuge here in 1566 during the pirate attack on Funchal — one of the island's few places invisible from the sea. The Nossa Senhora do Livramento church (19th century), the Eira do Serrado viewpoint 1,095 m above, the start of PR 2 Vereda do Urzal towards Boca das Torrinhas, and chestnut as the star of the local food.

    🗺️ See it on the map