Câmara de Lobos

"The beach of Câmara de Lobos": the main bathing option of a municipality with a long coastline but few beaches. About 400 m of pebbles of every size — look for patches of small stones for your towel — water between 18 and 24 °C depending on the season, cafés and restaurants next door, south of Largo da República. Until the 1970s, with no piped water or municipal wash-house, the mouth of the Ribeira do Vigário was the only place to wash clothes: the old photographs of women washing and of sheets "bleaching" in the sun on the pebbles were taken here. Free access. Bathing season 2026: 1 May – 27 September, a supervised beach with lifeguards assured. In a swell follow the flags: red = no bathing.

In Câmara de Lobos bay, on the historic site where salt was once extracted, this complex opened in 2004 illustrates the Madeiran formula: making a rocky, hard-to-reach shore swimmable. Two seawater pools, for adults and children, toilets, changing rooms, a bar, loungers and parasols. After the swim, the fresh fish of the fishing-port restaurants is minutes away. Bathing season 2026: 1 June – 6 September, a supervised beach with lifeguards assured. In a swell follow the flags: red = no bathing.

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.

Gardens laid out on top of a coastal rock, the Ilhéu, from which you see the houses of Câmara de Lobos and, further off, the cliff of Cabo Girão, Europe's highest at 580 m. This rock was once the most densely populated spot in Madeira: it was the town's fishermen's quarter, a tradition the bay still keeps. Redeveloped since, it is now a place to walk.

A strip of land at the foot of the cliff, very fertile like all the island's fajãs, for a long time reachable only on foot and with the harvest carried on your back. A cable car now links Rancho to the Fajã do Cabo Girão beach in a few seconds; it was first installed for the farmers of the parish of Quinta Grande. The descent gives an overview of the poios, the cultivation terraces, and of part of the south coast. Bar and restaurant on site.

Museum in the municipality of Câmara de Lobos. The history of printing and the press in Madeira, in the municipal library building: opened in August 2013 with the Museu Nacional da Imprensa, it shows presses and machines from the 19th and 20th centuries.

The first convent founded outside Funchal, in 1479. A flood carried off the original building soon after; by 1480 the church and its outbuildings were rebuilt, this time away from the stream. The Baroque group that survives has an irregular plan: a church and a chapel with single naves, gabled façades, Baroque portals, dormitories and service buildings. It belongs to the Third Order of Saint Francis; soft and hard stonework, plastered regional masonry, oak and rolled pebbles are all visible.

Opened in 2011, it is one of the island's newest churches. It replaced the convent of São Bernardino as the seat of the parish of Santa Cecília, created on 24 November 1960 by decree of the Bishop of Funchal, D. David Sousa. The architect Luís Jorge Santos gave it the shape of a boat, in reference to the apostle Peter's: straight lines, minimalism, a bell tower detached from the body. The single nave is dominated by a Christ Pantocrator. At Christmas the missas do parto are sung here.

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.

The fishing bay immortalised by Winston Churchill, who set up his easel here in January 1950 at the Espírito Santo viewpoint; seventy years on, the charm of this small cove has hardly changed. The first place inhabited by João Gonçalves Zarco between 1420 and 1424, the island's first settlement raised to a parish in 1430, the town owes its name to the monk seals ("lobos-marinhos") that lived in the cove. Colourful boats, the "xavelhas", lanes of bars, shops and restaurants, the Nossa Senhora da Conceição chapel (15th century), the former São Bernardino convent (1425), the São Sebastião church (16th); about 35,000 inhabitants in the municipality, poncha and fresh fish to taste. Cabo Girão and the Curral das Freiras valley are close by.

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.