Sept. 14 - Exploring the Southern Coast of Madeira

“If you never go, you'll never know.” –Unknown

Today we drove west along the southern shore of Madeira. We decided to drive all the way to the end on the main road (freeway) and slowly make our way back to Funchal using the smaller more local roads stopping at places that looked interesting. The faster road goes through a series of tunnels, some of these tunnels are miles long. All the roads in Madeira are well maintained and well marked. It would be hard to get lost even without a GPS.

Do you see the cloud in this photo?

Our first stop was at the Ponta do Pargo Lighthouse. It's an active lighthouse that was built in 1922 on top of Ponta Vigia, a rocky cliff escarpment and is 1023' above the sea. The views were unbelievable.

The color of the water was so blue and it was so clear. Amazing!

Our next stop was an out of the way short hike to the Gorge Funda Viewpoint. We love waterfalls and wanted to check this tall fall out. We read it was 460' high. I'm sure it would have been impressive, but unfortunately it's the dry season and there wasn't any water. But the view was fantastic.

We could see this little house on the cliff from the trail.

What we saw and how it looks during the rainier season.

We could see the lighthouse from this little hike.

From here we started back towards Funchal. We took small roads and found several rocky beaches and found a wonderful spot for lunch in Ponta do Sol overlooking the ocean. It became increasingly cloudy all day. So the pictures don't show the true beauty of what we say. Every turn brought another unbelievable view.

The rocks are so large it was hard to walk on this beach.

Cascata dos Anjos (Waterfall of Angels) - we drove under this waterfall.

Ponta do Sol. The beach is so rocky they had a boardwalk to walk on and wooden pallets to sit on.   

What a view. We had our first Prego sandwich. A Madeirian traditional steak sandwich. So good. 

This is the Sol Poente Restaurant where we had lunch. If you look close you can see the blue deck we were sitting on that hung over the water.

Even with little sunshine the water looked inviting...so clear and blue.

After lunch we stopped at the Cabo Girão Skywalk. It's the highest promontory in Europe, that juts out the side of the mountain 1,900 feet above sea level. The suspended glass platform offered incredible views of the coastline, Funchal and the town of Câmara de Lobos.  

I found this photo online to show what the area looks like.

I was a little afraid to put my phone over the side to take a picture. I thought I might drop my phone.

Looking down through the glass floor.

Looking towards Funchal.

Our last stop of the day was Câmara de Lobos. A beautiful little harbor town known as the Land of Fishermen. The town's name means Chamber of Wolves and was given its unusual name due to the large influx of monk seals, known on the island as sea lions (literally ‘sea wolves’ in Portuguese), which used to inhabit the cove and the local caves. 

Stan and his buddy Winston Churchill. He liked visiting Madeira and spent his days painting. He would set up his easel and canvas and paint the bay of Câmara de Lobos in oil.

The boats were beautiful.

The streets in Câmara de Lobos are filled with art.

We went to dinner at a little place on Rua da Santa Maria called Galeria. Stan had Tropical scabbard fillet with passion fruit and banana and I had the  Risotto with mushrooms and truffle oil. The food in Madeira is very good and very reasonably priced. Most dinners were under $50 including cocktails.

We went to a roof top bar for a nightcap. Another wonderful view.

We ended our long day by sitting on our little patio listening to a concert in the park across the street.