First steps on Madeira’s island of eternal spring

Julia Williams leads our Madeira walking holiday across Funchal, Ponta do Sol and Porto Moniz. In the first of two journal entries, she discovers what makes this island like nowhere else on earth.

What Funchal reveals on foot

There is a moment, usually somewhere along the seafront, when Madeira stops being a destination and starts being a personality.

We are walking from Funchal to Câmara de Lobos, and the island is introducing itself in the way it always does: all at once, and all on its own terms. A bronze statue of Baden Powell catches the eye first. The scouts are thriving here, we learn, and there is something quietly pleasing about that. Then we round a corner and there he is, Ronaldo, immortalised in another statue outside his own museum, because on Madeira, football runs almost as deep as the levadas. We wander through tropical gardens and past the grand façade of Reid's Hotel, which has welcomed everyone from George Bernard Shaw to Gregory Peck, and which still carries itself with the particular confidence of somewhere that has always known its own worth.

Then, quite unexpectedly, we find ourselves next to a line of taxi drivers. They are protesting about port taxes, but they could not be more good-natured about it. We stop, we talk, they laugh. This is Madeira. The warmth of its people is not a tourist-brochure claim; it is simply what happens when you walk slowly enough to let a place in.

We end up in a tiny harbour, and there, on a bench, is a statue of Winston Churchill. Another famous visitor, another layer of the island's remarkable story. The whole walk has taken us perhaps a few kilometres, but it has felt like an entire education.

This is our Complete Madeira walking holiday, a three-centre adventure that takes us from Funchal on the south coast to the quiet town of Ponta do Sol, and on to the remote northwest village of Porto Moniz. It is, quite simply, one of the most characterful walking holidays I lead. Madeira has a character all of its own, built from the levadas, the mountains, the coastal paths, the volcanic rock formations, the flowers, and the fact that it really is the island of year-round spring. Who doesn't love walking in the springtime?

The levadas: Madeira's most rewarding walking paths

And then the levadas begin. These are the ancient high-mountain irrigation channels that criss-cross the island, built centuries ago to carry water from the wet north to the drier south, and along whose edges some of the finest walking in Europe quietly exists. You walk beside them, the water moving steadily at your side, through forests of laurisilva, past waterfalls, under cliffs hung with ferns and moss. Walking under a waterfall here, surrounded by green on every side, is one of those experiences you simply cannot plan for. You just have to show up and let the island do its thing.

The levadas have their own history, their own engineering logic, their own character. They draw you deeper into the island's interior and reward your curiosity at every turn. By the end of the first few days, you begin to understand that Madeira is not just one landscape. It is dozens, stacked on top of each other, and the levadas are the thread that connects them all.

One thing every Madeira walker should know

Before you travel, one practical note: pack for every weather. Whatever the time of year, you may meet rain, sunshine, pretty hot and pretty cold, sometimes all in one day. Layers and layers, and both lighter and heavier weight walking footwear. Think of it less as packing for a climate and more as packing for a conversation. Madeira will keep you on your toes, and that is rather the point.