The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Venture to Madeira’s quiet north
Every bit as rugged, lush and historic as the popular south, this unassuming shoreline is a glorious proposition, says David Taylor
Walk along the levadas and you’ll never be lost” is 81-year-old millworker Carlos’s most important piece of advice for Madeira’s visitors. It’s well worth heeding. The history of the archipelago – off the north-west coast of Africa, but settled by the Portuguese in 1420 – is intertwined with its levadas, long stretches of waterways that wind down miles of Madeira’s steep hillsides, bringing life to every corner of the volcanically fertile main island.
It’s the levadas that have provided Carlos and his family with their living for the past 323 years. He still runs the oldest mill in Madeira, which is fuelled by the water that rushes underneath his home and powers the millstones within that grind the grain to produce hefty bags of flour. Like many Madeirans of his age, Carlos left the island in search of a better life, living in South Africa for 40 years before returning to run the mill in which he was born. After suffering a stroke last year, he used the oldest family heirloom – a centuries-old hand mill – as part of his physiotherapy. Adversity breeds ingenuity.
The north side of Madeira is dotted with people like Carlos, with unassuming houses holding stories that reach back through generations. Until 20 years ago, however, these stories would have remained steadfastly in the family, as access to Madeira’s more rugged, rural north was patchy at best. Before EU funding arrived in the mid-1990s, it could take six hours to travel from the towns and villages in the north to the southern capital of Funchal. Now, thanks to more than 150 tunnels that shoot through mountains and glide along cliff edges, it takes roughly 45 minutes by car from top to bottom. Not only has this revolutionised life for northern
Madeirans, it’s opened up the island’s most beautiful region to tourism, too.
Still, there are plenty of off-road gems, so long as you know where to look. As my driver and guide, Pedro Albuquerque, said (or, rather, shouted over the thrashing of his 4x4’s engine), “difficult roads lead to beautiful places”. As we drove through half a dozen of Madeira’s barely believable microclimates, taking in subtropical pockets and Scottish-style forests alike, he told me that North American tourists say the archipelago is Europe’s Hawaii: a glowing review, especially considering that – for Brits – Madeira is somewhat cheaper to get to.
I was treated to what Pedro called a Madeira massage: guide-speak for barrelling around in the back of a 4x4 over paths more suited to mountain bikes – a pursuit that’s hugely popular here. Understandably, adventure sports in general are big business across the island, and the north has its fair share with some of Madeira’s best bike routes, and uncrowded bays perfectly suited to both the local surfing community and visiting beginners.
As we curved around the northern edge of Madeira from Porto Moniz to Ponta de Sao Jorge, kissing the clifftops for some of the most dramatic views anywhere along the Atlantic, it was immediately clear that you could spend a long time exploring all the region’s verdant nooks and crannies. About a quarter of Madeira is covered in ancient forest, mainly here in the north, where trees that grew before the Portuguese first set foot on the land still stand tall. Along with its island neighbours, it is part of what is known as Macaronesia, literally the Fortunate Isles, a name coined by the ancient Greeks, who believed them to be the home of heroes and those blessed by the afterlife. Today, two-thirds of the entire island has protected status, its World Heritage laurel forestry among its most valued natural history. As you walk among the laurels, the sound of any rare traffic or crowd sapped away by the undergrowth, it’s easy to see where the Greeks were coming from.
Eventually, we arrived at Quinta do Furao (quintadofurao.com), a restaurant and hotel on the north east cliffline. A traditional meal in Madeira is probably best described as versatile, with agriculture and fishing the major island industries besides tourism. I tucked into sautéed black scabbard followed by an espetada (beef or vegetables on a traditional bayleaf skewer) and watched as the early-October sun gave way to a mild, refreshing evening.
After dinner, we continued west along winding roads to my home for the night, Terrabona Nature & Vineyards. Though it can be tempting to use Funchal as a base from which to explore the north, staying in the hills provides an excellent opportunity to experience the more local, grounded side of Madeira, which so seduced Marco and Maria, the husband and wife team who own and run Terrabona. Both bankers by trade, they bought the land in 2016, intending to simply rebuild an abandoned vineyard. Enamoured by the space and serenity on offer less than an hour from their hectic everyday lives, their plan quickly grew in scope. The end result, which opened in June, is a collection of modernist villas, situated halfway down the Cardo Valley, which wouldn’t look out of place in Jurassic Park. The topography of the north of the island means that it would be difficult to recreate many of the south’s busier spots, and its less prevalent infrastructure and winding local roads – dotted with the sort of tiny roadside shacks that function as pubs – dictate a slower pace of life.
Southern Madeira is unmissable as a region brimming with natural and human history, ready-made for tour packages, cruise guests and longweekend city breaks. But for an unvarnished, adventurous, lifeaffirming trip to the real Fortunate Isle, you need only go half an hour north. Go now, before everyone else gets wind of it too.