Towns & Places
Funchal and the municipalities, villages and landmarks worth knowing.
7 articles
Funchal
Madeira's capital and only city, Funchal rises in a bowl of hills around its harbour — a place of cathedral and old town, market halls, wine lodges and the cable car climbing to Monte.
Towns & PlacesMonte
A cool, garden-filled hill parish above Funchal, Monte is home to the island’s patron church, the tomb of an exiled emperor, a famous tropical garden and the wicker toboggan run down to the city.
Towns & PlacesCâmara de Lobos
A colourful working fishing town west of Funchal, Câmara de Lobos is the home of poncha, a landing place for scabbardfish, and the harbour Winston Churchill stopped to paint.
Towns & PlacesMachico
The eastern town of Machico is traditionally the first place the Portuguese came ashore, seat of one of the island’s two original captaincies and wrapped in a romantic legend of shipwrecked lovers.
Towns & PlacesPorto Moniz
At the wild north-western tip, Porto Moniz is famous for its natural swimming pools — lava basins where the Atlantic pours in over black volcanic rock beneath towering terraced cliffs.
Towns & PlacesSantana
On the green north coast, Santana is famed for its casas de Santana — little triangular thatched houses — and serves as a Biosphere Reserve and gateway to the trail up Pico Ruivo.
Towns & PlacesGetting Around
Madeira is reached by an airport famous for its pillar-supported runway and crossed by a remarkable network of tunnels, expressways and cable cars that tamed its near-vertical terrain.