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📡 Today's status

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

● Open · ABERTO

The gentle way down from Pico do Areeiro towards Funchal, graded easy: 6.7 km, about 2:40, from 1,805 m — just below the summit (1,818 m), the archipelago's third-highest peak — to the welcome centre of the Parque Ecológico do Funchal at Ribeira das Cales (1,130 m). Views over the Ribeira do Cidrão valley, which joins the Ribeira dos Socorridos at Curral das Freiras, and over the Paul da Serra plateau. On the way, the Poço da Neve: an igloo-shaped well built in 1813 to store the snow and hail of the peaks, whose ice then went down to the city's hospitals, hotels and ice-cream makers. Typical high-altitude flora all along. Managed by the Câmara Municipal do Funchal, the trail needs neither booking nor fee; it continues as PR 3.1 to Monte for a walk all the way to town. A classified trail managed by the Câmara Municipal do Funchal, so outside the booking-and-fee regime: free access. Safety advice applies everywhere: never walk alone, tell someone your plan, finish before dark, carry spare water and food, and give up in heavy rain, wind or hail.

Highlights

  • Pico do Areeiro
  • Poço da Neve (1813)
  • Funchal Ecological Park
  • High-altitude flora
  • No booking
Difficulty
Easy
Length
6.7 km
Elevation gain
675 m
Duration
2:40
Price
Free (managed by the Câmara Municipal do Funchal)
Municipality
Funchal
🎟️ Book on SIMplifica🗺️ See the route on the map📍 Start🏁 End

Track for guidance only.

Places within 2 km of the route

  • 🌿 Nature

    Maciço Montanhoso Central

    The whole central range above 1,400 m, about 8,200 hectares classified a Natural Monument. Two blocks make it up: to the east the island's highest peaks, Pico Ruivo (1,862 m) and Pico do Areeiro (1,818 m); to the west the high points of Paul da Serra, Pico Ruivo do Paul (1,640 m) and Bica da Cana (1,620 m). The ragged relief comes from the differential erosion of water on pyroclastic rock. It is also a geological and high-altitude vegetation reserve, and the only known nesting place of Zino's petrel.

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  • 🔭 Viewpoint

    Miradouro do Pico do Areeiro

    The island's third-highest peak, at 1,818 m, and the most visited thanks to its road and facilities: from up here, the whole Maciço Montanhoso, Ponta de São Lourenço, Curral das Freiras and, on clear days, Porto Santo, with the Atlantic as a backdrop. The sunrise spectacle, weather permitting, draws ever more onlookers and photographers — the best hour, provided you wrap up. It is the start of the Vereda do Areeiro (PR 1) to Pico das Torres (1,851 m) and Pico Ruivo (1,862 m), fully reopened on 1 May 2026. Access: car park charged at €4.00 per hour; a shuttle is run by Horários do Funchal (timetables on their site). The lookout itself is free.

    Lookout free · car park €4.00/hour
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  • 🏛️ Culture

    Santuário de Nossa Senhora da Paz

    At Terreiro da Luta, in the parish of Monte: the island's largest monument, born of a vow. In 1917, during the First World War, German submarines shelled Funchal twice. Madeirans promised to raise a statue to Our Lady of Monte if peace returned. Ten years later the shrine was inaugurated on 14 August, the day of Nossa Senhora do Monte, to plans by the architect Emanuel Ribeiro, with a five-metre marble statue. Around its base runs a rosary made from the chains of the ships sunk in the attacks.

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  • 🌿 Nature

    Parque Florestal do Montado do Pereiro

    In the Poiso forest perimeter, in the parish of Camacha (Santa Cruz), a park dedicated to leisure for the whole family: great biodiversity of native and exotic species, big old trees, young plantations of Madeira cedars, folhados and massarocos, chestnuts and beeches. Picnic areas with tables, fountains and fireplaces, a campsite, football pitches and mini-golf; parking, paid toilets, public-transport access. Open weekdays 9:00–17:00, weekends until 18:00 in winter and 19:00 in summer.

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