Today we leave our apartment in Sao Vicente. We will visit the Levada 25 Fontes and move on to Funchal, where we will visit the Ponta de São Lourenço peninsula.
Levada 25 Fontes
After breakfast we'll pack up, clean the apartment and leave it for good today. We no longer drive down to Sao VIcente, but go in the opposite direction to Boca da Encumeada. By the way, there is a boarding point for the Levada do Norte. But we don't have time for it and continue along the ER 105 road, which is carved out of the cliffside and besides a few small tunnels, there is no shortage of fallen rocks on the road, indicating that the windshield here may be an endangered species.
Route ER 105
View from ER 105
The rock masses are replaced by a plateau and suddenly you find yourself in a place full of wind turbines and grazing cows. The roads here are so straight that it's the only place in Madeira outside the motorways where you can safely get up to 80 kph.
From the plateau it is only a short walk to the car park. From there you have to walk about a kilometre to the Rabacal hut, which is the starting point for the Levada 25 Fontes. For the lazier hikers, a shuttle bus runs every quarter of an hour from the hut to the parking lot.
Rabacal cottage
It takes about an hour to walk the entire Levada in one direction. The trail is wide enough at the beginning. About halfway along, it narrows noticeably and by the end you have a big problem avoiding oncoming traffic. It's like squeezing through a full compartment on a train. From a tourist's point of view, it's an amazing place, but one also marvels at the engineering of the whole Levada. When at one point the Levada is divided by a stream and a valley and to this day we still haven't figured out how they crossed the stream.
Levada 25 Fontes
At the end of the Levada there is a bonus in the form of the 25 Fontes waterfall.
25 Fontes Falls
The way back is the same way, only the narrowest place can be avoided by a shortcut through the forest. We reach the bottom of Rabacal, but on the map it strikes me that at the other end it looks like the Levada continues through a long tunnel. I therefore suggest, despite the time press we have, to go and explore it further. And indeed we come across the tunnel portal De Rabacal, which the Levada enters and after a few kilometres exits at the south of the island. The tunnel is freely accessible and can be passed through. Unfortunately, we don't really have time for that.
Tunelo De Rabacal
We're rushing back to the car. The half-empty parking lot is now packed to bursting. We find that some good guy has blocked our exit with his car. He thought we were going to get on the road early. But the ground clearance of the car is less than the difference between the car park and the tarmac, and I had to work hard not to scrape the underside as we drove out. Still, we got a bit of a pinch. We also witnessed an incident where the guy scraped the neighbouring car as he was pulling out.
We return along the same road to Boca da Encumeada and descend steadily along ER 105 towards Riberia Brava into the valley of the same name. There are some amazing views along the way.
Riberia Brava
We get on the highway and exit at Quinta Grande, as we make a short detour to a glass-floored lookout called Cabo Girão, which is 589m high. It overlooks the sea and Funchal. Parking is free at this place. Although it has a glass floor, it doesn't look that scary.
Cabo Girão
The last point today is Ponta de São Lourenço. This is the easternmost point of the island, so we have to drive through Funchal, the airport and take the highway to Caniçal. Then we just follow the ER 214 district road until the tarmac ends. At the end of the road there is a large interceptor car park and from there you have to walk.
Ponta de São Lourenço
The peninsula plays with all colours and you can see the layering of different types of rocks as they have erupted from the volcano over time. Given the time, we reach about the second third of the peninsula and head back to the car.
Ponta de São Lourenço
We head towards Funchal with a stop in Machico, taking advantage of the fact that we have a car on our last day to do a big shopping spree at the local Continente. We also fill up with a little petrol to make up for the condition we took over the car with. We drive to Funchal after dark. Since we weren't originally supposed to have a car, we're staying in the centre, but without a guaranteed parking space. This turns out to be a major problem, aside from the horribly narrow streets you have to drive through to get to that centre after exiting the motorway. But the worst is yet to come. The horror of parking. It's dark with millions of people, cars and narrow roads everywhere. We circle the whole centre and when we find ourselves at the beginning again, I resign myself to the first underground car park we can find. This is part of the Europa Shopping Centre. Because of this, we have yet to find out if we can even leave the car here overnight. Somehow we'll sort that out with the receptionist at the main entrance, who doesn't speak English but will use her hands and feet to help us make arrangements. Now that we've ditched the car for a song, we're off to find our new apartment. It was located on Rua Direita and was called Pelourinho Apartments by An Island Apart.
Pelourinho Apartments by An Island Apart
Due to the late hour today we will only manage to unpack, clean the car and have dinner with Port wine. Tomorrow we will go exploring around Funchal.
Useful links:
Auto Rent a Car Madeira
Casinhas da Laurissilva
Other accommodation in São Vicente
Pelourinho Apartments by An Island Apart
Other accommodation in Funchal
