Cliffs and Clouds

We're leaving Funchal today and heading to the north west corner of the island to Porto Moniz.

We contacted a taxi driver a few days ago who specialises in transfers for tourists and agreed a price for the journey, including stops on the way. To drive direct takes one hour, so we hired him for 4 hours with 3 stops.

First stop was the Cabo Girão Viewpoint, famous for its suspended glass platform. At 589m it's claimed as the highest sea cliff in Europe and the 2nd highest in the world (but both claims are in dispute!)

We then ascended the central mountain range close to the highest point of the island, where we were above the clouds for much of the journey.

On the northern side of the island we stopped at the Fanal Forest, an old growth laurel forest - it's at 1500m altitude and often shrouded in cloud, giving it a mystical appearance... but the cloud blows in quickly and disappears just as fast. Laurel forests were once spread throughout Europe, but today are practically extinct, so the Madeira Islands laurel forest was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1999, covering an area of 150 square kilometres.

We arrived at Porto Moniz at 2pm, had some lunch on the foreshore and a trip to the supermarket. Oliver and I then went for a caching walk, and had an impromptu Levada walk.

A levada is an irrigation channel or aqueduct specific to Madeira. They were originally constructed of stone and later concrete to irrigate the sugarcane fields, and usually have a walking path next to it. There are more than 2,170 kilometres of levadas - not bad for an island 57km long and 22km wide.Read more