Madeira ER101 North Coast from Funchal

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Funchal

   Funchal climbs the sides of a natural amphitheatre on the south coast of Madeira, and from the harbour the houses rise in tiers into the green mountains behind. It is the island's capital, with about a hundred thousand people, and the name comes from funcho, the Portuguese word for fennel, which grew wild here when the first settlers arrived in the fifteenth century. Sugar made the island rich, then wine, and the legacy of both still shows in the tall merchant houses and the church interiors covered in gilded wood.

   Read the complete Funchal write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Funchal is where the day begins. Next is Camara de Lobos.

2. 2. Camara de Lobos

   Câmara de Lobos is the fishing harbour everyone paints. Winston Churchill sat here in 1950 to do exactly that, on a holiday to Madeira, and the place still trades on the connection with a viewpoint named after him. Below the road, a small bay of brightly painted wooden boats, drying nets and stone steps looks very much as it must have done a century ago, and above it white houses climb the slope in terraces.

   Read the complete Câmara de Lobos write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Camara de Lobos comes up about 9 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cabo Girao.

3. 3. Cabo Girão

   At Cabo Girão the land simply stops. A cliff drops almost six hundred metres straight into the Atlantic, one of the highest sea cliffs in Europe, and a glass-floored skywalk juts out from the rim so you can look straight down at the waves, the little farms and the red roofs of the fajãs at the bottom. Those narrow flat patches at the foot of the cliff, formed by old landslides, are farmed by people who once reached them only by boat or by steep paths, and today a small cable car also serves them.

   Read the complete Cabo Girao write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 15 km into the recorded legs you reach Cabo Girao. Next is Porto Moniz.

4. 4. Porto Moniz

   Porto Moniz sits at the north-western corner of Madeira, where the island runs out of land and meets the Atlantic with a wall of black volcanic rock. The village is small, with just under three thousand inhabitants, and its fame rests on the natural swimming pools, a series of basins formed in solidified lava by ancient eruptions, which fill with clear seawater at high tide and make a sheltered place to swim among the rocks while the swell crashes just beyond. Fishermen still work the coast, and the village has a small fort, a handful of cafes and a lively fish restaurant tradition. The name comes from an early settler family, the Monizes, who received land here in the fifteenth century.

   Read the complete Porto Moniz write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Porto Moniz, late in the day. Next is Sao Vicente.

5. 5. Sao Vicente

   São Vicente lies on Madeira's north coast, in a narrow green valley where the mountains drop almost straight into the sea, and it is the sort of place where a road has to be persuaded into existence. The old road along the north coast, the ER101, runs between the sea cliffs and the steep slopes, in and out of tunnels carved through the rock, and over small bridges that cross waterfalls. The result is one of the most dramatic coastal roads in the Atlantic, wild, wet and green.

   Read the complete Near São Vicente write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Finish at Sao Vicente. That is the ride.