Funchal is the capital of Madeira — a Portuguese island 520km west of Morocco in the Atlantic, and a city of 105,000 people in a natural amphitheatre of green volcanic hills rising directly from a crescent harbour where cruise ships moor in a line at the renovated dockside. Madeira is not the Canary Islands: the island is steep (over 1,800m in 60km), densely forested (laurisilva — laurel forest listed as UNESCO Natural Heritage 2000, a Tertiary-period ecosystem that covered most of southern Europe 15 million years ago and survives only here and in small patches in the Canaries and the Azores), cooled year-round by the Atlantic trade winds, and never hot in the tropical sense (annual average temperature in Funchal: 22°C). The city is famous for: the Mercado dos Lavradores (the art nouveau market where tropical fruits — cherimoya, pitanga, banana-passionfruit, tamarillo — are sold by women in traditional Madeira dress), Blandy's Wine Lodge (a 17th-century wine lodge in the city centre producing Madeira wine — the fortified wine that lasts centuries in a bottle and was the most important wine in the 18th-century British and American worlds), the Monte toboggan ride (a wicker sledge ridden by two men in straw hats down 2km of cobblestone), and the Levada walks (300km of stone irrigation channels through the laurel forest, now the best hiking network in the Atlantic islands). Best months: April–June and September–October.
Mercado dos Lavradores (Farmers' Market — Largo dos Lavradores, a 1940 building in Art Deco/Portuguese Modernist style designed by Edmundo Tavares, with a tile-decorated exterior (azulejos depicting farming and fishing scenes by João Carlos Tomás Júnior) and a covered interior market hall; the ground floor is the fruit and flower market: the vendors (traditionally women from the island's mountain villages, wearing the traditional Madeira costume — a red-and-yellow striped skirt, black bodice, and embroidered white blouse) sell Madeira specialities: anona (cherimoya — a green-skinned fruit with white custard flesh, native to the Andes, tasting of vanilla ice cream), pitanga (Surinam cherry — bright red, intensely sweet-tart, sold by the small plastic cupful), tamarillo (tree tomato — a red egg-shaped fruit with a tart interior, eaten with sugar), and the Madeira banana (much smaller and sweeter than the Cavendish variety, not exported). Upstairs: the fish and meat market.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideRua de Santa Maria (the main street of the Zona Velha/Old Town — the area below the Mercado dos Lavradores, towards the city's eastern breakwater; a former working-class fishing neighbourhood whose garage doors have been transformed since 2010 by a project (Arte das Portas Abertas — Art of Open Doors) that invited artists from around the world to paint each individual door as a canvas: 200+ unique artworks on consecutive doors along 300 metres of street, from photorealistic trompe l'oeil to abstract). The area also has: the 15th-century Igreja de Santa Maria Maior (the oldest church in Funchal, with a Baroque facade added in the 18th century), several of the old stone wine lodges (adegas), and small restaurants serving grilled espada (scabbardfish — a long, metallic deep-water fish caught only in Madeira, served fried with banana and passionfruit — the definitive Madeiran dish).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideEspada com banana (black scabbardfish with banana — espada (Aphanopus carbo) is caught in depths of 800–1600m only off Madeira and the Azores; its metallic-black skin and elongated body are unmistakable; served fried with a banana and passionfruit sauce, the combination sounds impossible but is unexpectedly harmonious — the mild, white-fleshed fish and the sweet banana balance the saltiness of the ocean. Every Madeiran restaurant serves it. Best value: Restaurante Zona Velha (Rua do Portão de São Tiago — €12–18 for a full espada meal with wine), or the market restaurants on the first floor of the Mercado dos Lavradores (€10–15, with the bonus of eating surrounded by the market stalls).
Blandy's Wine Lodge (Avenida Arriaga 28 — the São Francisco wine lodge, established 1811, a 17th-century Franciscan convent converted to a wine lodge by the Blandy family (an English trading family who came to Madeira in 1811 and became the island's dominant wine producers)); Madeira wine is a fortified wine (like Port, but with a unique production method: estufagem (heating in large tanks at 45°C for 3 months) or canteiro (the traditional method — ageing in oak casks in the warm upper floors of the lodge for 20–100+ years); the wine is deliberately oxidised, which makes it among the most stable wines in the world — bottles from the 1840s are still drinkable). The lodge tour (€14, 45 min) includes the cellars, cooperage, and a tasting of 3 wines.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuidePontão (the harbour promenade below the Sé Cathedral — the evening walking route of Funchal residents, running along the seafront from the Marina to the cruise terminal, with views of the ships at anchor, the cliffs rising behind the city, and the sun setting into the Atlantic beyond the western headland). Poncha (the traditional Madeiran drink — aguardente de cane (sugar cane rum), honey, lemon juice, and sugar; served in a small clay cup or short glass, typically 2–3 poncha for a session at €2–3 each; the correct establishment: Taberna Poncha (Rua de Santa Maria) or any bar in the Old Town advertising poncha artesanal).
The Teleférico do Funchal (cable car from Almirante Reis in the Old Town to Monte, 3.7km, 560m ascent, 15 minutes; gondolas every 15 seconds, views progressively revealing Funchal bay, the cruise ships, and (if clear) the island of Porto Santo 43km to the northeast). Monte (the upscale hilltop quarter of Funchal — a village at 560m with a cooler climate, baroque church, formal gardens, and the original holiday homes of Madeira's wealthy merchants (5-storey quintas with private gardens on the steep terraces)) is the starting point for both the Monte Palace Garden and the toboggan. Return cable car: €16 round trip, or take the toboggan down.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideMonte Palace Tropical Garden (Caminho do Monte 174 — a 70,000 sq m garden surrounding a 19th-century palace (now a museum of African art and Zimbabwean stone sculpture, a legacy of the owner's time in Zimbabwe); the garden has Europe's largest collection of cycads (ancient palm-like plants that predate the dinosaurs, used as living fossils in the garden design), a Japanese garden with koi pond and torii gate, a lake with black swans and flamingos, and the most elaborate azulejo (Portuguese tile) installations outside Lisbon — 450 metres of tiled panels depicting Portuguese history from the Age of Discovery (1420s) to the 1974 Carnation Revolution. Adults €12.50.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Monte toboggan (Carros de Cesto — the wicker sledge ride from Monte to Livramento (2km downhill, 10–15 minutes at speeds up to 48 km/h on cobblestone streets); operated since 1850 by carreiros (toboggan drivers — men in white linen trousers, white shirts, and straw boater hats who run alongside the sledge, steering with rope handles and braking with rubber-soled shoes on the cobblestones); originally a practical mode of transport for Monte residents to reach Funchal quickly, now the most famous tourist activity in Madeira. Two adults per sledge. Cost: €30/sledge (2 people). The ride ends in Livramento; taxi back to Funchal centre: €5–8.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Sé Cathedral of Funchal (Largo da Sé — built 1514, the cathedral is the finest Manueline (Portuguese Late Gothic) building in Madeira; the carved cedarwood choir stalls (1514) are the most important artistic work on the island, with 64 carved faces of exotic peoples from Africa and Asia (as encountered by Portuguese explorers) in the misericord panels — the first accurate European carvings of sub-Saharan Africans, as documented by João Gonçalves Zarco's 1420s voyages). Adjacent: Museu de Arte Sacra (Rua do Bispo 21 — the Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art, with the Madeiran collection of 15th–16th century Flemish paintings acquired through trade with the sugar-producing Madeiran planters: works attributed to Gerard David, Jan Provoost, and the Master of the Morrish Figures; Adults €5).
Bacalhau com natas (salted cod baked in cream — the most popular bacalhau dish in Madeira, with the cod shredded and layered with potato crisps and béchamel cream in an earthenware dish; €14–18 at most Old Town restaurants). The Madeiran alternative: milhos (cornmeal porridge — the traditional Madeiran staple, similar to Italian polenta, served with pork loin (lombinho) and sautéed vegetables, €12–16). Best restaurant for either: Restaurante do Museu (Rua da Carreira — inside an old merchant palace, consistent quality, €15–22 for a main course with local wine).
The Levada do Caldeirão Verde (PR9 — one of Madeira's most celebrated walks, 12.8km one-way (25km return), following an irrigation channel (levada) cut into the cliff face of the north coast escarpment at 900m altitude through old-growth laurisilva forest (the UNESCO Natural Heritage Tertiary laurel forest — the ancient forest that covered Mediterranean Europe 15 million years ago, surviving on Madeira because of the island's oceanic climate); four tunnels (the longest 580m — headlamp required); the destination: Caldeirão Verde (the Green Cauldron — a 100m cliff with a waterfall falling into a circular pool of intensely green water). The walk takes 5–6 hours return. Trailhead: Queimadas Forest Park (a 40-minute drive from Funchal, or a 1-hour organized hiking tour bus departing daily from the Funchal marina at 08:00, €25–35 including transport and guide).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideLevada das 25 Fontes (PR6 — a shorter and less strenuous Levada walk, 11.6km return, from Rabaçal (west of the island, 40 min from Funchal by taxi or organized bus); the walk passes through laurel forest along the Levada do Risco to the 25 Fontes (Twenty-Five Springs — a horseshoe cliff with 25 waterfalls falling simultaneously into a large pool of turquoise-green water; one of the most photographed natural sights in Madeira). 3 hours return. Harder to reach independently (the road to Rabaçal is narrow and has no parking); organized day trip: €30–40 including transport from Funchal and guide.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideReturning from the north coast by the late afternoon (the taxi or bus returns at 16:00–17:00), the final evening in Funchal: the harbour at dusk is the correct place — the coloured lights of the Old Town reflected in the breakwater water, the cruise ships lit up like floating cities, and a final poncha at a waterfront bar. Alternatively: the Fórum Madeira mall (Estrada Monumental 300 — the western seafront mall with a Continente supermarket, cinema, and several restaurants including the best sushi in Funchal (Ichiban), if three days of espada and bacalhau has reached its limit).
Blandy's Wine Lodge occupies the 17th-century São Francisco monastery in central Funchal — the oldest wine company in Madeira (1811, still family-owned). The tasting room is in the original lodges where Madeira wine (the fortified wine that survived the 1755 earthquake by being on ships at sea) has been aged in American oak casks for 200 years. The 5-wine tasting covers Sercial (dry, saline), Verdelho (off-dry), Bual (medium-rich), Malmsey (luscious sweet) and the vintage reserve. Madeira wine's unique oxidised character comes from the estufagem process — gentle heating that mimics the effect of the original ocean voyages.