Welcome back to the beautiful island of Madeira—which, if you had forgotten—is part of PORTUGAL.
In the previous article, we did a brief introduction to Madeira and explored its main city/town, Funchal. It’s a pretty place, but this is not really why anybody comes to Madeira. They come for the natural beauty of island! I’ve heard it described as the Hawaii of Europe. Now that I’ve been here… eh, I will withhold agreement or disagreement until I visit both the Canaries and the Azores. But, broadly speaking, I understand the comparison. This is a lush, green, mountainous, tropical(ish), volcanic island. Europe is unlikely to have many better points of comparison.
Anyway, it’s time to get out into nature. Slap on some sunscreen because we’re going out for a HIKE!
Hiking Ponta de São Lourenço
Farol da Ponta de São Lourenço is an easy drive west from Funchal. We were staying just east of Funchal, which made the drive slightly longer, but it’s hard to complain with these sorts of views. Here are a few snaps from the car ride…
When you fly into Madeira—assuming you are coming from Europe, which is undoubtedly the most common flight path—you will fly over this jagged, sun-soaked rocky outcropping. Even from the window of the plane, it seems really long. It makes an impression on you immediately that Madeira is going to be a rocky, mountainous place. Which is true. I had sort of forgotten about this little land formation until I looked at the map on the morning of this hike (I wasn’t responsible for planning this portion of the trip 😂)—it turned out, we would be hiking out to the very end of it!
At the time of our visit, Farol da Ponta de São Lourenço was the 2nd most popular hike in Maderia on AllTrails, which I just found out has this cool map embed feature. So here’s the info from AllTrails: it’s categorized as an “intermediate” hike, and you can probably knock it out in a few hours. There are definitely some very steep stretches of trail, but there are also flatter portions where you can catch your breath. And there is also a little oasis in the middle of it in the form of a cafe! I have no idea how these restock that place.
This article is going to be light on words and heavy on pictures. The views do the talking.
The pictures I had seen of Madeira before actually visiting really did look like Hawaii (re: “Hawaii of Europe”) because of how green the island looked. This hike… was not particularly green. It was actually quite an arid landscape, with the only trees to provide shade being an odd palm tree here or there, as you might see in the desert. It reminded me of California. In fact, it was quite similar to the Chimney Rock hike in Point Reyes. But Ponta de São Lourenço is much more dramatic.
To say the hike was “sun soaked” would be an understatement. The sun was actually quite relentless since there was no shade to be found! It might be advisable to do this hike closer to sunrise or sunset, because the mid-day sun definitely put my sunscreen to the test. That aside, the views were quite a striking. There was one point where the trail gave way to huge sea cliffs within 10 feet on either side. If it was just a tiny bit narrower, it would have felt really precarious. I think the photos showing this stretch of trail will be quite clear in the gallery below. Enjoy!
Fast-forward a few days to our eventual departure from Madeira, and we were on an evening flight back to London. The sun was just beginning to set when I looked out my window, and saw this odd, skinny peninsula one last time.
I think a lot about “firsts” and “lasts.” Like the first time you enter a place or meet a person that will be important to you—you would have no way of grasping the significance in the moment. Or, the last time you see that place or that person. Would you even know it was the last time?
Madeira was beautiful, but there’s too many other places in the world for me to envision myself coming back here anytime soon. This may seem like a negative indicator for Madeira that I’m not sure that I’ll ever come back, but it’s not—it’s just reality. And it’s recognition of a potential “last” that I have captured in these photos I took on my phone out the plane window. Through that lens, I find these photos quite arresting. For the past year, my life has been a whirlwind. I need to be intentional to save beautiful moments into my memory while I can get them, because they may not always be so abundant. This was one time I did that successfully.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. We still have one more article left in Maderia! Stay tuned.
