The north coast at its most dramatic: green mountains dropping straight into rough sea, and a chapel built inside a rock.
Come through the tunnel from the south and the island changes. The light is softer, the slopes are greener and wetter, and the sea is no longer the calm blue of Funchal but a grey-green swell breaking on black rock.
The village sits a little inland, tidy and white around its church. Down at the river mouth, look for the Capelinha do Calhau, a tiny chapel hollowed into a boulder in 1694. The lava caves nearby, formed by an eruption some 890,000 years ago, have been open to visitors in the past; check before you plan around them.
From here the coast road runs west to Seixal and Porto Moniz, in and out of tunnels, with waterfalls coming down beside it after rain.
A tipThe north is often cloudy when the south is clear, and the other way round. Look at the webcams before you choose which coast to do today.
- From Funchalabout 40 minutes by car
- Chapel in the rockCapelinha do Calhau, 1694
- Coastnorth, open to the Atlantic swell
At the end of the route, in Funchal, four artists draw whatever you bring back from the island: a place, a flower, a word, a set of coordinates.
The outline of the island
Madeira in a single line.