Santa Cruz

The bathing complex of the town of Santa Cruz, next to the municipal market, designed for all ages and accessible to people with reduced mobility: on one side the pools (adults and children), on the other a typical pebble beach. Lifeguard and first-aid post, changing rooms, showers, toilets, restaurants. Water quality recognised by the Blue Flag (2026). Bathing season 2026: 1 June – 30 September, a supervised beach with lifeguards assured. Blue Flag 2026. In a swell follow the flags: red = no bathing.

At Caniço, on the east coast known for the transparency of its water, a small, well-equipped pebble beach: parking, toilets adapted for people with disabilities, a sports area, parasols, a restaurant and bar with a view of the Atlantic, lifeguards and a first-aid post. A concrete sun deck and a pier complete the pebbles. The Blue Flag flies here every year (2026 included). Bathing season 2026: 1 June – 30 September, a supervised beach with lifeguards assured. Blue Flag 2026. In a swell follow the flags: red = no bathing.

The beach of the Garajau Partial Nature Reserve, created in 1986 to protect the biodiversity of these waters and prevent the desertification of the seabed: fishing banned, navigation restricted, and calm, clear water that makes it the island's reference dive site — dusky groupers and giant manta rays included. You go down by cable car from the cliff; toilets, changing rooms, a first-aid post and restaurants facing the Atlantic. Bathing season 2026: 15 June – 15 September, a supervised beach with lifeguards assured; classified as a limited-use beach. In a swell follow the flags: red = no bathing.

On the Santa Cruz shore, next to the parish's main beaches, a complex much loved by families: two pools where children play safely, a large sun deck, changing rooms, toilets, a terrace, and a small sheltered bay between the boating area and the pools for getting into the sea. A few metres away, Aquaparque Madeira, the archipelago's only water park, open from June to September: five slides, four tracks, two pools and a lazy river, for more than a thousand people. Bathing season 2026: 1 June – 30 September, but lifeguard cover not yet confirmed. In a swell follow the flags: red = no bathing.

In Caniço's first tourist complex, built on volcanic rocks at the foot of a steep coast served by a panoramic lift: a large seawater pool and a children's pool, a medical post and lifeguards, a bar, a sun deck, games, changing rooms and toilets, plus a diving centre (Manta Diving) for exploring the seabed of the neighbouring Garajau reserve. "Galo Mar" bathing water with lifeguards assured in season. Bathing season 2026: 1 June – 30 September, a supervised beach with lifeguards assured. In a swell follow the flags: red = no bathing.

Near the eastern end of the Garajau reserve, at the foot of a cliff, this complex attached to the hotel of the same name offers a rocky beach, sun decks stepped on the rock, sea access by stairs and a seawater pool for a quiet swim in transparent water. Almost every service, but, the terrain being what it is, no access for people with reduced mobility: you get in only by steps. Bathing season 2026: 1 June – 30 September, but lifeguard cover not yet confirmed. In a swell follow the flags: red = no bathing.

Madeira's first marine reserve, created in 1986 on the initiative of a group of divers alarmed by the impoverishment of the seabed: 376 ha along about six miles of coast south-east of Funchal, between Ponta do Lazareto and Ponta da Oliveira, from the high-tide line to the 50 m isobath (never less than 600 m from the shore). Fishing banned, navigation restricted, habitats representative for in-situ conservation; its calm, clear waters make it the island's reference dive site, with dusky groupers and giant manta rays. Land access by the Cais do Lazareto or Garajau beach (cable car); above, Ponta do Garajau (Natural Monument), the 1927 Cristo Rei and the Pináculo viewpoint, a Natura 2000 area important for Cory's shearwaters and terns. Regional forestry institute environmental-education visit programme for groups.

The three uninhabited islands visible from the south coast — Ilhéu Chão, Deserta Grande and Bugio — form, with their islets and the sea down to the 100 m isobath, a nature reserve of 12,586 ha, in line with Ponta de São Lourenço, 12 nautical miles from it and 22 from Funchal (official coordinates 32° 30' N, 16° 29' 30'' W). Protected since 1990 as a Special Protection Area, they owe their status to the urgent need to save a small colony of Mediterranean monk seals, the lobo-marinho, whose conservation project began in 1988; the Vigilantes da Natureza keep a permanent watch. Thousands of people visit them every year by boat — private craft, maritime-tourism operators, Navy ships — always with prior authorisation, which manages the area. The Doca of Deserta Grande is the landing point.

A leisure park in the parish of Santo António da Serra, in the middle of dense Laurissilva — the humid subtropical forest some twenty million years old, made mostly of species endemic to Macaronesia. A path serves eleven lagoons where trout are fished; you can then cook them at an open-air picnic area. The park has a tea house, and the visit can include a poncha welcome and a home-made meal.

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.

A market opened on 2 June 2018 in the heart of Camacha, which quickly became a regular stop for residents and visitors alike. Fresh fruit and vegetables are sold here, many grown in the parish itself: its slightly cooler climate than the coast suits certain crops. Camacha is also the wickerwork village.

The municipal market of Santa Cruz, about 680 m² in the town centre, built in the second half of the twentieth century. Regional produce is sold here, given its particular character by the island's subtropical climate and fertile soils.

The parish church of Santa Cruz, the second largest church in the Region after Funchal Cathedral, on whose model it was built in the sixteenth century. The structure has stayed intact: bell tower, pointed portal with colonnettes and archivolts. Inside, the chancel is covered by a ribbed vault resting on corbels and carries a polyptych of six sixteenth-century oil paintings on wood, from a good Portuguese workshop. Among the liturgical objects, a gilded silver chalice marks the passage from Gothic to the vocabulary of the Roman Renaissance.

A charity and health institution housed for centuries in a building begun in 1530, of Mannerist hospital architecture. The plan is rectangular, made of several blocks and garden areas; the wings have been much reworked, but two portals topped by a balcony window survive. The Santa Isabel chapel is attached to it. The institution still provides social services in the municipality.

Built in the first half of the twentieth century on the rubble of a 1641 hermitage, the chapel changed approach: the altar was moved and the Gothic front gave way to a plainer Baroque design. Inside, an image of Santo Amaro in gilded, estofado wood holds the eye. The patron saint's feast falls every 15 January: in Madeira it marks the end of the Christmas season and comes with the tradition of 'cleaning out the cupboards'.

One of the island's oldest Marian churches, built in the first half of the sixteenth century near an estate called Fazenda das Moças, which belonged to the sisters Isabel Álvares and Leonor Álvares. The style is Manueline; the Renaissance-inspired carved wooden altarpiece and the chancel are what to look at. The chapel is open for visits and for mass, nearly five centuries after it was built.

The gateway for those arriving by plane: Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport lies in the municipality, 18 km from Funchal, between ocean and mountain. One of the archipelago's oldest settlements — Zarco found old cedars here and had a cross made from them, hence the name — Santa Cruz has about 43,000 inhabitants and five parishes (Camacha, Caniço, Gaula, Santo António da Serra, Santa Cruz). In town, Praia das Palmeiras and its complex by the market, the Ribeira da Boaventura complex and the Aquaparque; at Caniço, the Garajau Partial Nature Reserve, created in 1986, and the Reis Magos and Garajau beaches.

At about 700 m in the municipality of Santa Cruz, a few kilometres from Funchal, the rural parish that keeps the island's traditions alive. Wicker founded a unique industry here, which in its heyday exported hand-woven pieces to several continents; folklore is the other emblem, with the red vertically striped skirts of the "viloas", now a regional symbol. The Levada da Serra do Faial crosses the whole parish, for walks among the local fauna and flora. Montado do Pereiro and Poiso lie on its heights.