A new day in Madeira and lots of travel experiences ahead. In one day we will visit a private waterfall, a place called Miradouro Rocha do Navio, traditional Madeiran houses in Santana, and the viewpoints of Balcoes and Eira do Serrado. We'll also have time for a short walk in our first Levada.
Original houses in Santana
Since the programme is packed to bursting, there is no time for any polishing. We have breakfast, pack everything we need and at 9 am we set off on foot from our apartment for a ten-minute hike to a local private waterfall. Expectations are not high, but the result, like everything here in Madeira, is worth it. Simply put, in the middle of nowhere you get a waterfall about 50 metres high with a small lagoon all to yourself.
Good morning
We admire the waterfall, take a few photos and go back. We get in the car and drive towards São Vicente. Now, in the light, we see what we had to go through at night. In São Vicente, we stop at a store because the only charging cable we had stopped working and our cell phones were almost dead. Next stop was Miradouro Rocha do Navio near Santana. Still in Sao VIcente, the navigation, quite nonsensically, floods us through the local streets, so it's up and down before we finally hit the Via Expreso and speed at seventy kilometres through a network of tunnels to Santana.
Tour de São Vicente
Walking through the tunnel at ease
Tunnel Engenheiro Duarte Pacheco
After an hour's drive we finally reached Miradouro Rocha do Navio, a breathtaking place offering impressive views of the sea and the island's coastline. This viewpoint is at an altitude of 300m above sea level and there is a cable car down to the beach, which was just out of service. There is still a nice trail to walk down, but that was beyond our time. So we just enjoyed the views and headed back to Santana to visit the local traditional houses.
Miradouro Rocha do Navio
Miradouro Rocha do Navio - Cable car
Miradouro Rocha do Navio - Trail to the beach
But before that, we were intrigued by what looked like a larger supermarket, which eventually turned out to be our new idol on this island called Continente. It's a chain of supermarkets scattered all over the island. This is where we bought food for the day, and straight up all our dinners in the form of ready-made Indian sauces, for which we only bought rice.
We leave the supermarket and drive about a kilometre to the town hall, where there is an open-air museum with traditional colourful houses. These serve both as a souvenir shop and as a museum where we learn about the way of life of the locals and their culture and traditions. These traditional houses are built of stone or wood and covered with special straw to protect them from extreme weather conditions. There is a free parking lot across from the museum, but it was full, so we drove down the hill back to the Continente where there was free longitudinal parking. Also, there are tons of tourists here, so getting a photo without people is sometimes a miracle.
Santana - Interior of the original house
Santana
A short walk from the open-air museum, we will buy souvenirs and finally head into the mountains. The first mountain stop on our journey was the Balcoes lookout, another breathtaking spot offering panoramic views of the surrounding landscape and breathtaking views of Pico Arieiro, Pico das Torres and Pico Ruivo. That is, if you're lucky and don't have the peaks shrouded in fog like we did. But back in time a little. From Santana, it takes about half an hour to get here. The car can be parked in the Riberio Frio village near the Faisca restaurant. It's about a ten-minute walk from there. Before that, you climb a little and then walk along the Levada to JUncal. In our case, our first. As I mentioned the views aren't great, so to fix our appetites we at least walked this Levada marked as PR11 - Vereda dos Balcoes, which leads to the second catchment area by the A Truta restaurant. By parking somewhere else, we walked it back and forth.
The trail to the Balcoes
Balcoes
Balcoes - (in)view of Pico do Arieiro
Restaurace Flor da Selva
Riberio Frio
Just briefly, what are the Levadas. They are networks of canals that were built in the 16th century and are part of a vast irrigation system. Water from the mountains in the northern part of the island, where it rains more often, is diverted to the agricultural areas in the south, where it is used to irrigate crops, because it does not rain so much in this part of the island and the southward orientation makes the conditions favourable for agriculture. Today, thanks to the network of paths and trails needed to maintain the canals, the levadas are a popular tourist attraction, offering beautiful walks in the area and magnificent views of the surrounding countryside.
Some of the levees are very old and narrow, but they are also much less frequented and offer a unique experience of walking through narrow canals. Most of the levadas that are used by tourists are wider and more suitable for comfortable walks. In addition, some levadas are connected to waterfalls, which adds to the beauty and attractiveness of these places.
Levada do JUncal
PR11 - Vereda dos Balcoes
After a short walk, we head to the last item on today's agenda, the Eira do Serrado viewpoint. It is located on the southern part of the island, so we have to cross the mountain ridge by car. In doing so, we take a wrong turn and suddenly find ourselves at the top of Madeira's third highest mountain, Pico Arieiro. But we don't continue to it because it is not on the agenda until tomorrow. We turn the car around and drive back to the junction of the ER202 and the Caminho Florestal des Serras de Santo António. The latter was narrow as hell, so much so that two cars had trouble avoiding it. On the way we still came across the Montado do Paredao Curral des Freiras viewpoint, which as the name suggests offers breathtaking views of the village of Curral des Freiras. Here Janet opens and tastes the local alcoholic drink Poncha for the first time. This delicious drink is made from local sugar cane brandy, honey and lemon juice. Three flavours are sold. Poncha Traditional (traditional), Poncha Maracuia (maracuja flavour) and Poncha Tangerina (with a flavour of a local type of tangerine). But we liked the basic regional the best. The drink is often served in small glasses called "cálice" and is traditionally stirred with a wooden "caralhinho" (wooden stick).
The View Montado do Paredão - Curral das Freiras
When we finally leave the Caminho Florestal des Serras de Santo António, we come to the even deadlier Estrada da Eira do Serrado. She looks fine from the car, but then as you see her from a distance you realise that the road is carved out of the rock and there is a steep drop off below you. Plus the road is pretty narrow too and we met a bus at a bend, which was fun to dodge to pass. At the end of the road is a mountain hut with free parking. From the hut it's then about a 5 minute walk to a lookout where it was solidly windy. But the views of the Curral des Freiras and its valley were awesome, and even better than the previous viewpoint.
The View Eira do Serrado
The View Eira do Serrado
Estrada da Eira do Serrado
That's all for today. We get in the car and the sat nav takes us to Funchal. As we're used to half-empty roads, it was purgatory here. Full of cars and narrow roads, plus a tangle of streets and a faulty satnav, made for some cruel moments. But we did come across a Continentce shopping centre here, so we went shopping for port for the evening and some food to go with it.
Then we're going home. At first we are stuck in traffic, but once we get on the motorway, it clears up and by the tangential junction between Riberia Brava and Sao Vicente the cars are down to a minimum. We arrive at the apartment around 8:30 or so. We make dinner, drink a bottle of Port and go to bed. Tomorrow we have an equally challenging crossing of the ridge from Pico Ruivo to Pico Arieiro.
Useful links:
Auto Rent a Car Madeira
Casinhas da Laurissilva
