Interesting facts about Madeira / Where is it?   Map

• Madeira Island is closer to Africa than it is to Europe. Located just 280 nautical miles from the African coast, it is more than 500 miles to Lisbon.
• The island has the world’s largest fireworks display for New Years Eve. ​They even made it into the Guinness Book of World Records in 2006.
• Madeira island is home to Europe’s tallest sea cliff - more than 1,900 feet above the sea; Cabo Girão.
• There are more than 25 miles of tunnels throughout the island. Most of these were built throughout the 16th century. However the construction didn’t stop until and all the way up to the 1940’s. They were built to help with building and maintaining the hundreds of miles of aqueducts called Levadas that cover the island.
• There are more than 1,300 miles of hiking trails in Madeira.
• Plants grow here that cannot be found anywhere else in the world.

The ship took 36 hours to travel from Ponte Delgada to Funchal. It’s only 607 miles so we suspect that the ship slowed down to arrive early in the morning to allow all passengers time to visit the city ( 607 miles in 36 hours is approximately 16 mph, somewhat slower than the Epic cruising speed).

We didn’t book a ship excursion. Everything there is to do in town is in close proximity to the port and it’s easy enough to walk or take taxis which was more cost effective than the ship excursions.

 Quick History Lesson 

Funchal began around 1424, when the island was divided into two captaincies, and the zones that would become the urbanized core of Funchal would be founded by João Gonçalves Zarco who settled there with members of his family. Owing to its geographic location, the site became an important maritime port, whereas its productive soils became a focus of new settlers. Its coastal position, the most productive on the island, quickly permitted Funchal to develop an urban core and surpass the populations of other settlements, which slowly gravitated around it.

Funchal is the largest city, the municipal seat and the capital of Portugal's Autonomous Region of Madeira, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean. The city has a population of 111,892, making it the sixth largest city in Portugal, and has been the capital of Madeira for more than five centuries. Because of its high cultural and historical value, Funchal is one of Portugal's main tourist attractions. It is also popular as a destination for New Year's Eve, and it is the leading Portuguese port on cruise liner dockings.

 The above information was extracted from Wikipedia.

Teleferico Do Funchal

We took a taxi to the Teleferico Do Funchal (cable car) so that we could head up to Monte to take the famous toboggan ride back down. Since we weren’t going to come back down on the cable car, we got a one way fair to the top which was 11 euro per adult. If you wish to see the botanical garden (via another cable car from the top) the cost would have been 31,40 euro per person. We didn’t do the garden but in hindsight I wish we had.

This building is where you purchase your tickets for the gondola ride to the top of Monte, and the queue seen in this picture gives you a pretty good idea of how popular this cable car is!

  

Image # 2 is the property of Michael Gaylardvia Wikipedia Commons (Creative Commons 2.0). All other images are the property of Just Traveling Thru, LLC unless otherwise noted.

The cable car views allowed us to see the layout of the city and the harbor below. Mostly white houses with orange tile roofs make up the city. The hills are steep to the point that I’m not sure I’d be comfortable driving until I got used to it. Think San Francisco on a smaller scale, with narrower streets and sometimes steeper hills.

At the top, there was an overlook to get more photos and some gardens. It was a short walk down around the corner to the toboggan area and the Church on top of Monte.

The area at the top of Monte is partially surrounded by the Monte Palace Tropical Garden and above that is a suburban area where we hiked up along the Caminho do Ferro. The road quickly ascends to where it is above all the houses on the city-side, so the views (all the way to the harbor) were superb.

The toboggan run is about 2Km long and you can reach 48km per hour in spots. You can see in one of the above images where we had just started the toboggan ride, as well as one of the places where we slowed to turn a corner. Be sure to take a look at our video (below) of our toboggan ride!

Click this image to watch a video of our toboggan ride down from Monte.
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We caught a taxi from the end point of the toboggan ride to the edge of the city and did some exploring. We found ourselves at Praca do Carmo plaza at lunch time where there were numerous restaurants. We ate lunch at Restaurante Sabores where we sat outside. We endulged ourselves with a bottle of Vinho Verde, some fresh fish, french fries and I had an excellent omelete.

Negotiate with the taxi drivers if you want a quick and reasonably priced trip down. Otherwise you can take the bus - there is a stop very close to the end of the toboggan ride.

After lunch with headed over to Mercado dos Lavradores - which is a combined shopping center and open air vegetable and fish market. There were tourist shops with things made out of cork, local crafts, and the obligatory t-shirts. We saw many people from the ship here. Note that we didn’t have a map or anything we just wandered into these places. The town is pretty compact and it was not difficult to find interesting things to see.

NOTE: After liking what we saw on our short visit to Madeira Terry did some deeper research and found that there are some beautiful hikes and scenery outside of the city of Funchal and much more to see and do - and we both agreed that we should place Madeira onto our list of places that we would like to revisit & spend more time there.

As an example, go to YouTube and enter "Madeira Hiking" and you will get a large list of some amazing videos, below are several good ones - and there are many more;

• Just Traveling Thru European Travel Tips
• Just Traveling Thru Travel Planning Tips
• The 5 best hikes of Madeira | World Wanderista
• Madeira, the most thrilling hike: Pico do Arieiro to Pico Ruivo | Vlog 1 | World Wanderista
• 7 days on an amazing island
• Madeira Levada Walks on the "Youtube" site
• Madeira - Top 10 Hikes

• Madeira Drone Views
• The Best of Madeira on the "Youtube" site
• Madeira History on the "Madeira Web" site
• Discovering Madeira Website
• Google Search Results list for "Funchal Restaurants"
• Google Search Results list for "accommodations in Funchal"
• Visit our Youtube Channel

You should be aware that Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) varies where their ships go, as well as what ships they will reposition. To determine where NCL is sending what ships, you should visit their website. Our list of ports below, is based upon what the "Epic" did when we were onboard in 2019.

Disclosure: Some of the links on this page are Affiliate Links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, that we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. So we would appreciate any click throughs, if you are inclined.

Note: All images on this page are the property of Just Traveling Thru, LLC unless otherwise noted.

Note: If you are interested in our European Travel Tips & Warnings, Click here. Or to take a look at our methods for Trip Planning click here.

To view our entire set of images from Funchal Madeira, click here