Madeira

[Glynne]

The boss and I are off to Madeira (Funchal) in a few weeks time and I wondered if anyone has any experience of walking / hiking or mountain biking there?

I'm trying to avoid the normal touristy trips as I used to do a bit of mountaineering and can still just about manage an easy black run on the MTB and there appears to a gap between the very easy (and expensive) trips and the maniac down-hillers with full face helmets.

I've done the usual searches and I'm in email contact with a British couple who run a B&B (TJ Walking) but unfortunately don't run any trips anymore so any advice, experience would be really welcome.

Thanks,

Glynne

 

[Jacob]

The walking is spectacular on the levadas - irrigation channels cut into the hillsides. You start at the head of a valley on a little ledge by a water channel and 100 yards further on you find yourself 500 metres above the ground and the ground falling away further with every step. Being water channels they contour around so they are fairly level. It's the bits in between which aren't.
Images here
There are plenty of guide books available and they are well signed and protected with wires or fencing, a bit like via ferrata.
No idea abut cycling - strictly for hand bangers I would have thought - the whole island is up and down with virtually no flat ground at all.

 

[finneyb]

Good for walking, used the Sunflower book from memory.
Probably 10 years ago we stayed in the north west corner, well away from Funchal - a German run hotel with rooms overlooking the sea, very isolated.

Still remember the driving school cars - they had dual steering wheels - that how steep and winding the roads are.

Brian