Walking in Madeira: Crossing the island on the Madeira Trail

In the olden days, Madeira was primarily a destination for cruise ships and beach tourists attracted by its year-round balmy temperatures. The audience has changed dramatically over the past couple of decades. Surfers and mountain bikers have found their favourite playgrounds around the island and keen hikers have started to discover the levadas and veredas across the central mountain range.

One of the most attractive things about walking in Madeira is the big variety in landscapes. You could be walking on the top of a huge cliff, following the course of a levada through a mystical laurel forest and enjoying the ocean view from one of the rugged peaks that form the backbone of the island all on the very same day. There is also lots of variety in terms of trails. Generally the lower level trails in the southwest and the far northeast are fairly easy without much technicality and exposure. The deeper you go inland to the proper mountains, the steeper and more exposed the trails get. The pathways along many levadas have been restored in the last 10 years and made safer for hikers. Having said that, it can still get a little rough and slippery underfoot sometimes.

Madeira owes much to the levadas that run criss-cross all over the island. The name levada is derived from the Portuguese verb "levar" - to carry, and refers to a system of kilometres-long channels or aqueducts that mostly contour around the mountains and even run straight through them. They were designed to transport water from various sources to the lower parts of the island. The origin of levadas dates back to the 15th century when the first settlements on Madeira were established. Water from the higher mountains was used at that time for the sugarcane fields that can still be found on the island today. Madeira was the largest sugar exporter of the old world. Almost every levada is accompanied by a trail. This was previously used for maintaining the waterways, but nowadays it mainly serves as a superb walking trail. Madeira has no less than 3,000 kilometres of levadas.

To identify and map the paths along the levadas and veredas, Madeira has created a number system for the various trails; the PRs. This stands for Pequena Rota, or in English, "Small Routes." There are 23 of them on Madeira, and approximately half of them run along the levadas. The other half is covered by veredas. These are more traditional paths, and run for example, to the highest peaks of the island. The great thing is that many of the levadas and veredas are easy to connect, allowing you to do multi-day hikes across the island.

On Madeira there is a suitable walk for everybody, especially if you are mainly going to do day hikes. In this blogpost we focus on a multi-day, coast to coast hiking route that we call the Madeira Trail. The Madeira Trail is an 85 kilometre thru-hike spanning the mountains of Madeira from the east to the northwest coast of the island. Although you won’t walk more than 20 kilometres a day, you better bring your climbing legs. In five days you’ll climb and descend a whopping 5,370 metres, mostly on pretty steep terrain. Some of the paths that lead to the highest summits are very narrow, with steep drops on either side. This is not a place for people with vertigo.

Yes, you have to be a confident and fit hiker to tackle the Madeira Trail. However, it’s not all about hardship. The walking days are quite balanced with no extreme differences between them. After each stage, Bookatrekking.com can organise your comfortable Madeiran guesthouse or mountain hut. And for most of the way we can transport your luggage for you as well, so you can focus on the hiking itself.

If you like to work hard on the trail, you’re seeking a true adventure and you’re a sucker for mountain tops and epic ocean views, then the Madeira Trail may be the hike you’re looking for!

Travelling to Madeira is fairly easy. The island is well-served by a number of airlines from Europe’s main airports such as London, Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt. Funchal, Madeira’s capital city, is the port of entry for all flights.

Getting around on Madeira however, can be a challenge. Madeira does have a decent network of roads to reach all corners of the island. But public transport is rather limited, especially to and from the western side of the island. This makes it sometimes difficult and expensive to reach the start of the walking routes. The PR routes that we talked about before can be found all over the island. If a multi-day hike is something for you, we have good news. Access to the Madeira Trail is not so much of a problem, as there are only two points where you need transportation. Reaching the trailhead in Machico is easy, as there are plenty of buses operating from Funchal. And at the end of the trek it’s easy to organise a taxi that takes you back to Funchal. Of course Bookatrekking.com is happy to organise the transfers to and from the start and finish for you.

The Madeira Trail connects no less than 9 different PR routes all across the island from Machico to Ribeira da Janela. If you’re keen to hike a large chunk of Madeira’s PR walks, then hiking the Madeira Trail might be the most efficient way to do it.

Unlike the coastal areas, it is a little harder to find accommodation in the mountain areas. The Madeira Trail is designed in a way that the distance between accommodations is feasible in terms of walking distance. The places you will stay at are actually pretty good! All are located in or on the edge of natural conservation areas and you even stay in a mountain hut next to Madeira’s highest peak! Here’s a rundown on the accommodation we may use on the Madeira Trail.