Funchal

A small pebble beach with a sunbathing area in the Lido district, right by the promenade and less than 200 m from the Lido bathing complex; also called Gavinas beach. A cosmopolitan mood, bars, cafés and a big garden a step away: the place for a quick dip all year round after a jog along the promenade, then a drink facing the sunset. Unsupervised beach: take care in and out of the water. Bathing season 2026: 1 June – 15 September, but lifeguard cover not yet confirmed. In a swell follow the flags: red = no bathing.

The south coast's natural pool: a small complex on the seafront promenade between the Lido and Praia Formosa, with a pool of volcanic origin and direct access to the sea — the rare pleasure of swimming in a lava pool in Funchal. From the west side, a view of Cabo Girão and Praia Formosa. Showers, toilets, changing rooms and a bar, open all year. Rua da Ponta da Cruz 66, tel. +351 291 105 158. Bathing season 2026: 1 June – 15 September, a supervised beach with lifeguards assured. In a swell follow the flags: red = no bathing.

One of the few sandy beaches on the south coast: small, black, with some pebbles, about 2 km from Câmara de Lobos on the promenade linking the two municipalities. It is one of the four beaches of the Praia Formosa group (with Nova, Namorados and Formosa); you reach it along the promenade or by the stairs next to the Orca Praia hotel, which faces it. All the Praia Formosa facilities are within reach, ten minutes from the centre. Bathing season 2026: 1 June – 30 September, but lifeguard cover not yet confirmed. In a swell follow the flags: red = no bathing.

East of Funchal, at Neves, an unusual garden acquired by the Regional Government to protect a group of centuries-old dragon trees. The dragoeiro, endemic to Macaronesia, grows very slowly — about ten years to reach two or three metres before it first flowers — and is recognised by its "crown"; the species is in danger of extinction. The exact origin of these specimens is unknown; they may have come from nearby nurseries. Native vegetation of Madeira's coast around them, and an regional forestry institute information centre.

The Region's highest municipal garden, between 543 and 586 m, 26,000 m² in the heart of Monte, laid out at the end of the 19th century. Native and exotic species, including centuries-old trees; at the entrance, a bandstand and a marble fountain with the image of Nossa Senhora do Monte; in the centre, a lake with a map of the island carved in stone. Paths paved with small basalt pebbles run through the whole park — to be walked between the church, the cable car and the sledge departure.

A large public garden opened in 2005 in the Lido district, over about 11,800 m². Sixteen species of palm are planted here, and the space is made as much for sitting as for playing: children's playground, a basketball hoop, two table-tennis tables, a pétanque pitch and three games tables. It is the local garden of the city's hotel district, open daily.

Thirteen thousand six hundred square metres of garden in the city centre, on the site of the former Fábrica de Açúcar do Torreão, known as Engenho do Hinton. The industrial chimney and some machinery remain: what is left of Madeira's sugar industry. The park is divided into five gardens — Laurissilva, terraces, water, tropical and amphitheatre — designed by landscape architect Luís Paulo Ribeiro (TOPIARIS) and given an honourable mention in the national landscape architecture award, public spaces category.

Two point two kilometres of pedestrian promenade at the water's edge, between Ponta da Cruz — where the one running towards the Lido begins — and the bay of Câmara de Lobos, with its xavelhas, the coloured fishing boats. The route passes Caminho da Trincheira and ends near the bay car park, among replanted gardens. Part of it rests on piles, which limits its footprint on the cliff.

Eight square kilometres of mountain run by the city of Funchal, from 470 m where the Ribeiro do Pisão meets the Levada de Santa Luzia up to the 1,818 m of Pico do Areeiro. The Câmara bought the land in 1918 — it was then the Montado do Barreiro — to catch water for the city, and its springs still supply the upper reaches of the parish of Monte. Much of it was bare at the time, and the replanting that followed was meant to make more water; the ecological park proper was set up in 1994, around nature conservation and environmental education. The point here is the reception centre, the way in.

The fortress that guarded the old town's seafront against corsairs. Its construction began around 1614 under Jerónimo Jorge, the royal master builder, and was completed by his son Bartolomeu João. Renovated several times, it served as headquarters for British troops and the Army police, as shelter for the victims of the 1803 flood, then from 1992 to 2015 housed the contemporary-art museum, since moved to Casa das Mudas (Calheta). A journey through the island's history, with a privileged view over the Atlantic.

Built in the mid-18th century on the rock of Ilhéu de São José to defend the sea entrance to Funchal, when the port played a central role in trade. Tradition has it that João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira, Madeira's discoverers, sheltered here on arriving at an island covered in forest. During the British occupation of 1801–1807 the fort served as headquarters and then as a prison. Long neglected, it was revitalised by the private owner who bought it. Panoramic view over the Atlantic and the harbour.

The palace that dominates Praça do Município was built in 1758 as the residence of the Count of Carvalhal, passed through several hands and was bought in 1883 by the municipality, which has sat here ever since. Altered but faithful to its original design, it is a harmonious example of late-18th-century architecture. Worth seeing: the landscaped inner courtyard, lined with Battistini tiles made in 1940 at the Maria de Portugal factory, and its fountain with a marble "Leda and the Swan" by Germano José Salles. The City Hall can be visited on weekdays on one-hour guided tours in several languages.

Funchal's Italian-style theatre, on Avenida Arriaga. After the demolition of the Teatro Grande in 1833, Madeirans demanded a new theatre for much of the 19th century; it was opened on 11 March 1888 on the model of Lisbon's São Carlos and Milan's La Scala. Named in turn D. Maria Pia, Dr. Manuel de Arriaga and Teatro Funchalense, in 1935 it took the name of Baltazar Dias, a blind playwright and poet born in Madeira in the 16th century. Decoration and scenery by the Italian Luigi Manini and the Portuguese Eugénio do Nascimento Cotrim. A reference programme on the Portuguese scene; check the bill.

On Calçada de Santa Clara, the convent was raised between 1489 and 1496 on the orders of Funchal's second captain-donee, João Gonçalves da Câmara, to house the daughters of the local nobility; long cloistered, it can be visited today. 17th-century Hispano-Arabic tiles on the walls, worked wooden ceilings, restored 17th- and 18th-century canvases. The route takes in the atrium, the São Gonçalo de Amarante chapel (16th century), the porch to the choirs, the Gothic cloister, the lower and upper choirs, and the Santa Clara church commissioned by João Gonçalves Zarco, the island's discoverer. Run by the Regional Directorate of Culture

The church of Funchal's heights, at the top of its staircase, one of the island's most beautiful and historic shrines: Charles I, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, who died in exile at Quinta do Monte in 1922, still rests here. The 18th-century building keeps tile panels evoking Nossa Senhora do Monte and a set of late-18th-century paintings by Nicolau Ferreira. The parish holds one of Madeira's oldest and most popular festivals: novenas from 5 August, the big feast on 14 and 15 August. A step from the cable-car station and the sledge departure.

At the end of Rua de Santa Maria, one of Madeira's historic streets, the Socorro church — Santa Maria Maior — overlooks the sea in the old town. It received part of the heritage of the old São Tiago temple, destroyed by the 1748 earthquake: among those treasures, a Japanese Namban chest, proof that the island lay on the world's trade routes. Baroque architecture; inside, a painting on wood of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and, in the sacristy, a predella of the Apostles. The street's restaurants extend the visit.

Built in the second half of the 17th century by Pedro Gonçalves Brandão, next to Rua Fernão de Ornelas, one of the capital's busiest streets. A single nave, chancel and bell tower; an 18th-century Rococo façade in grey regional stone. In the chancel, a gilded Mannerist altarpiece with a throne and a painting of the patron saint by the Madeiran carver Manuel Pereira; 18th-century tiles depicting Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Open every day with regular Masses — a chance to attend a Madeiran Mass.

One of the island's oldest temples, in the heart of the Zona Velha: raised at the end of the 15th century by Funchal's fishermen in honour of St Pedro Gonçalves Telmo, patron of fishermen and sailors, it long served as the seat of their mutual-aid brotherhood for shipwrecks or illness. Also called the Espírito Santo chapel, it keeps a 15th-century pointed-archivolt portal; the interior, remodelled in the 16th and 17th centuries, shows a painted panel of the saint blessing a Manueline caravel — probably one of the oldest images of a ship in Madeira. Rua de Santa Maria and its restaurants are next door.

Funchal's English church, built in the early 19th century by Henry Veitch, the Scottish British consul who helped keep political and social harmony on the island in troubled times, for a then very present British community. A square central plan with a galilee front, Neoclassical style, a pipe organ by the gospel side. Services are held in English — a singularity in the Region — and the garden around it is worth a pause.

The big seafront esplanade, opened in 2014: on one side the Atlantic, on the other the city climbing towards the mountain. Wide leisure and sports areas for walking, running, cycling or skating, benches for watching the bay, carpets of plants and flowers along the path. Thanks to its size and central position it is the stage for the big open-air events — concerts, exhibitions, fairs — especially in summer.

The liveliest artery of the centre, from Largo da Sé to Rotunda do Infante: begun in 1914, paved with Portuguese calçada, lined with great trees and emblematic cafés. Along it stand the statue of João Gonçalves Zarco, one of the discoverers, the 15th-century cathedral, the Baltazar Dias theatre, the Municipal Garden, the Madeira wine lodges and traditional shops — the natural starting point of any walk in the capital.

In the former Bishop's Palace, founded in 1594 by D. Luís Figueiredo de Lemos, one of the capital's oldest museums shows art from the 15th to the 19th century: painting, sculpture, goldsmithing and gold-embroidered vestments, in two great groups, Portuguese and Flemish art — with Flemish canvases of a size rare in European museums, bought in the sugar era. Among the major pieces: the Água de Pena processional cross (15th century), a 16th-century Antwerp tray and chalice, and the cross given by King Manuel I to the cathedral. On the balcony, an 18th-century tile panel on Faith, Hope and Charity. Guided tours available

Open to the public since 1953 on Calçada do Pico, in the quinta that was the second residence of the family of João Gonçalves Zarco, Madeira's discoverer. Decorative arts in abundance: 17th-century Portuguese furniture in exotic Brazilian woods and English Chippendale, Hepplewhite and Sheraton pieces. European porcelain (Meissen, Bristol, Vista Alegre) and Qing-dynasty oriental pieces. Luso-oriental works of the 16th–18th centuries; sculpture, including terracotta nativity figures; goldsmithing and ceramics. The garden around it, with its archaeological park, is itself listed among the city's gardens.

The big reddish house on Calçada de Santa Clara, known as Casa da Calçada, once home of the Counts of Calçada, became the property of Frederico de Freitas (1894–1978), a Madeiran lawyer, notary and collector who bequeathed his vast collection to the Region in 1978; the museum was completed in 1999. Sculpture, painting, prints, furniture, ceramics, crystal and pewter of the 17th–19th centuries, with religious themes dominant; the prints on regional culture are a major iconographic source on 18th- and 19th-century Madeira.

The museum Cristiano Ronaldo wanted in his home town, opened on 15 December 2013 on Praça do Mar: 400 m² retracing his path from Andorinha and Nacional (Madeira) to Sporting, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus, with more than a hundred individual and team trophies — including his four Golden Boots (2007/08, 2010/11, 2013/14, 2014/15) and five Ballons d'Or (2008, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017) — photographs, videos, interactive content and a wax statue.

The "Casa da Luz", housed in Funchal's former power station, opened in 1897 by the Madeira Electric Lighting Company, the island's first concessionaire, and shut down in 1989 after the municipal electricity services were created in 1949. Rare old machines and appliances, and three routes: "Lights of Funchal" (the city's successive lighting), "A Century of Electricity" (the archipelago's electrification) and "Energy Sources", looking to renewables. Interactive resources, a temporary-exhibition room, a documentation centre and an auditorium.

The place where the centuries-old story of Madeira wine is told, on Avenida Arriaga: a group of Baroque civil buildings housing the island's oldest wine cellars, from the 17th and 18th centuries, beside the site of the old São Francisco convent demolished in the 19th century. In 1913 the Madeira Wine Association, now the Madeira Wine Company, was founded here, bringing several houses together. The museum follows the wine's journey from vine to transformation and explains the Sercial, Malvasia, Verdelho and Boal grapes; you visit the ageing rooms and the tasting rooms. Included here as heritage

The country's oldest photography studio, on Rua da Carreira, bought in 1865 by Vicente Gomes da Silva (1827–1906) and active until the 1970s; the Regional Government bought the whole collection in 1979 and opened the museum in 1982 in the restored studio. Sets, cameras, specialised furniture, frames with original photographs, technique manuals and above all an archive of three to four million images since the 1850s — the island's visual memory — plus a cinema section.

The archipelago's oldest museum still in operation, opened on 5 October 1933 in the Palácio de São Pedro, Rua da Mouraria, one of the great examples of mid-18th-century Portuguese civil architecture. Its study collections exceed 50,000 records for more than 200,000 species: fish, birds, land and marine mammals, marine reptiles, insects, invertebrates, plants, rocks and minerals of the archipelago and marine fossils from Porto Santo — the gateway to understanding the island's biodiversity before heading for the trails. Run by the Funchal City Council

Madeira's embroidery museum, attached to the Madeira Wine, Embroidery and Handicraft Institute, keeps pieces more than 150 years old: embroideries made between the 1860s and 1930s, shown in a recreated romantic 18th- and 19th-century atmosphere with Victorian furniture, mannequins and a reconstructed alcove. A dive into the art that made the island famous. The regional tourism board reports the museum temporarily closed: check before going (tel. +351 291 211 600).

A tribute to two brothers born in Madeira, protagonists of Portuguese modernism: Francisco Franco, one of the most prominent sculptors of the 1920s, much in demand for the official statuary of the Estado Novo, and Henrique Franco, an award-winning painter who took part in the Nossa Senhora de Fátima church in Lisbon, an emblematic work of the movement. Opened in 1987 in the premises of the former Auxílio Materno-Infantil, the museum brings together oils, drawings, prints, small frescoes and sculptures from their youth to their maturity. Run by the Funchal City Council

Between the Santa Clara convent and the Quinta das Cruzes museum, a late-19th-century house on Calçada do Pico holds the "Universe of Memories": everything that João Carlos Nunes Abreu — journalist, writer, manager, hotel director and Regional Secretary for Tourism and Culture — donated to the Region. A very diverse set of objects gathered from around the world, decorative arts first, plus cultural and educational initiatives.

Fourteen million years summed up in an interactive visit of an hour and a half, on Rua Dom Carlos I near the cable-car station: authentic historical objects and multimedia, in eight chapters — volcanic origins, legends of discovery, discovery of Madeira, turmoil and trade, strategic island, development, after navigation, exploring Madeira. From pirates to centuries-old traditions, for all ages, with a panoramic terrace over the centre.

On Praça de Colombo, the museum opened in 1996 brings back Madeira's golden age of sugar, on the memory of João Esmeraldo's Manueline house — where Christopher Columbus stayed. Flemish sculptures and paintings bought with sugar money, sugar moulds, silverware and objects unearthed from the Esmeraldo house recreate the social life of the 15th and 16th centuries, when "white gold" made the island's fortune. Regional Directorate of Culture

The oldest chapel in Funchal, with nearly six centuries behind it, in the middle of Santa Catarina Park and its 36,000 m². Its building was ordered by Constança Rodrigues de Almeida, wife of Funchal's first donatary captain, João Gonçalves Zarco. The architecture follows the regional seventeenth-century tradition: a Mannerist portal and a porch on red stonework columns; the holy water font dates from the early sixteenth century. Before the entrance a sculpture honours Prince Henry the Navigator; higher in the garden stands O Semeador, by the Madeiran sculptor Francisco Franco.

Built in the first half of the sixteenth century and still in the hands of the family that founded it, the Fávilas. French corsairs invaded and ransacked it a few decades after it was built: nothing survives of the original decoration, replaced in the eighteenth century by what is seen today. The architecture kept its shape. Nearly five hundred years on, the chapel is still a weekly meeting point.

A seventeenth-century chapel built by António Dantas, on the edge of Funchal bay. It is one of the few places of worship on the island where mass is said in English, on Sundays at 10 a.m. The Portuguese writer António Feliciano de Castilho lived in the house attached to it. Successive restorations have kept the essentials of the building and its interior.

One of the island's most recent churches, consecrated in 2002 on Avenida Colégio Militar, in the parish of São Martinho. It took over as the Nazaré parish centre, a role the Nazaré chapel had held since 1960. The architect José Rafael Botelho designed a modern building whose tower rises about 40 m. Inside, the font, the tabernacle and the altar are carved in green marble.

Built in the first half of the nineteenth century by Afonso Anes, near the old São Martinho chapel. Inside, the gilded altar and the frescoes telling the life of the patron saint hold the eye, as do Afonso Costa's ceiling paintings. Every year, in the first fortnight of November, the church hosts the feast of Saint Martin, one of the island's best attended; the parish civic centre doubles as a cultural hall.

The oldest surviving piece of civil architecture in the archipelago, on Caminho de Santo Amaro, in the parish of Santo António. Four buildings make up the group: the Torre do Capitão, raised in the mid-fifteenth century by Garcia Homem de Sousa, son-in-law of João Gonçalves Zarco, still medieval in feel; the Santo Amaro chapel, also fifteenth-century, which holds a stained-glass window by Pedro Calapez and an altar by the sculptor Rui Sanches; the Casa dos Romeiros, which took in pilgrims of the devotion to Santo Amaro and now serves as reception and shop; and a recent building for temporary exhibitions.

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.

On Estrada Monumental, 800 m² opened in 2021 by the painter Rui Sá, founder and curator, to show more than fifteen years of creation — around 300 works, mostly painting — in fourteen thematic areas around the four elements, fire, water, air and earth, to which he adds the spirit. The venue also hosts concerts of every style, fashion shows and workshops.