Funchal Walking Tours and Self-Guided Walks

The Old Town Loop

Visit Madeira calls the Zona Velha the first settlement of Funchal, a grid of narrow cobbled streets where the Painted Doors project turned doors and façades into an open-air gallery. Corpo Santo Chapel is one of the few 15th-century buildings still standing. Rua de Santa Maria is one of the oldest streets in the city and keeps traditional businesses, including the hat workshop and the boot makers Visit Madeira names.

Further along sits the Baroque Socorro Church with a small viewpoint, and above the seafront the Fortress of São Tiago, begun in 1614. The Mercado dos Lavradores, with its 1940 tile panels by João Rodrigues, opens Monday to Friday 07:00-19:00, Saturday 07:00-14:00, and closes Sundays and public holidays, so weekday mornings are the lively time. The free-tour operator describes Barreirinha, at the eastern end, as 5 minutes from the cable car, which is the operator's own phrase, not a figure anyone official publishes.

The cable car lower station sits in Jardim Almirante Reis by the Old Town, so this loop can end with a ride up to Monte. More detail in our Funchal Old Town and Mercado dos Lavradores guides.

The Lower Town: Cathedral To Praça Do Município

Start at the Funchal Cathedral on Rua do Aljube, ordered by King João II in 1493 and completed in the early 16th century, with its Mudéjar cedar ceiling. It has been a national monument since 1910 and opens Monday to Friday 07:15-18:30, with shorter weekend hours. Avenida Arriaga was built from 1914 and runs from Largo Dom Manuel I to the Rotunda do Infante, paved in Portuguese calçada and lined with large trees.

It passes the Zarco statue, the Cathedral, the Municipal Theatre, shops and the Municipal Garden. Turn off at Praça do Município for the City Hall, built in 1758 as the Count of Carvalhal's residence and the city hall since 1883. Guided tours of the building run on weekdays at 11:00, last about 60 minutes, and it closes on weekends and holidays, so plan around that if you want to go inside.

The 17th-century Jesuit Colégio Church on the same square opens Monday to Saturday 10:00-18:30 and Sunday mornings and evenings, and Blandy's Wine Lodge on Avenida Arriaga 28 runs lodge tours from $19.52 (€17).

The Gardens Line

This is the stroll with the views. The Funchal Municipal Garden (Dona Amélia) on Avenida Arriaga covers 8,300 m², was laid out in 1880 and is free. From there it is a short step to Santa Catarina Park, 3.6 hectares, whose designer Visit Madeira links to Edinburgh's Botanic Gardens.

The park viewpoint looks over the port and, on a clear day, as far as Ponta do Garajau. Next in the line is Quinta Vigia, the home of the President of the Regional Government, which Visit Madeira also lists for its viewpoint. Quinta das Cruzes, uphill near Santa Clara, adds another named viewpoint if you want to extend the line.

Free Walking Tours Funchal starts its Essentials route inside Santa Catarina Park, in front of the white chapel on Avenida Calouste Gulbenkian, so you can watch for the yellow umbrella and borrow their route. For gardens further afield, see Madeira viewpoints.

The Seaside Promenade

Visit Madeira dates the first section of the Funchal Seaside Promenade to August 1993, when it opened on the west side as the Lido Gardens. It passes the Marine Biology Station and the Ponta Gorda bathing complex, reaches Ponta da Cruz with the Doca do Cavacas tunnel, and continues to the Câmara de Lobos Promenade. Date palms and endemic and exotic plants line the way.

In the late-September period the Lido, Ponta Gorda and Barreirinha complexes open 09:00-19:00 daily and Doca do Cavacas opens 10:00-20:00, and the tariff is $6.89 (€6) individual entry at the complexes. Praça do Povo, opened in 2014 on the bay, gives a flat stretch for walking, jogging, cycling and rollerblading close to the centre, with benches and summer concerts and fairs. If you walk the whole westward line you finish within reach of Câmara de Lobos, which makes a good half-day out on its own.

Note that the promenade runs west and the Old Town runs east, so do not try to join them on the water's edge in one go.

Madeiran Heritage lists five tours in total, all starting at its store at the Jesuits' College on Rua dos Ferreiros, next to the Church of St John the Evangelist. Only the Old Town tour has a price printed on the operator's pages. The others are listed without one, so contact the office on +351 291 209 495, open Monday to Friday 09:00-18:00, before turning up expecting to book.

The bookable version of the Old Town walk appears on the platform as the Funchal Old Town walking tour at $19.00, rated 4.7 from 3,956 reviews.

Who Runs Them

Madeiran Heritage is a non-profit programme of the University of Madeira Students' Union, registered under RNAAT 768/2016. Guides are current or former university students or Erasmus volunteers, and the programme says the funds support students. That is why the Old Town tour costs from $17.11 (€14.90) rather than a commercial rate.

The meeting point for all its tours is the store at the Jesuits' College, Rua dos Ferreiros. If you would rather hear from a licensed commercial operator, the free-tour company below holds RNAAT 1352/2018 and is run by founder and guide Lisa Camacho. Neither operator publishes route lengths or distances, and no official source publishes walking times in Funchal, so expect to book by theme and time slot, not by distance.

Both routes are in English and both are graded. The Old Town Free Tour runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays at 09:30, lasts about 2 hours and is rated easy. It takes in São Lourenço Fort, the Legislative Assembly, the Old Town, Rua Santa Maria, São Tiago Fort and Socorro Church, and ends in the Old Town at Barreirinha, which the operator describes as 5 minutes from the cable car.

The Funchal Essentials Free Tour runs Tuesdays and Thursdays at 09:30 and 14:30 and Saturdays at 14:30, lasts about 2 hours 30 minutes and is rated moderate. It covers Santa Catarina Park, the Municipal Garden, the Cathedral, Municipal Square, the São Pedro historic centre and the English Church, and it does not go to the Old Town. If you only have one free slot, the day of the week decides the tour more than anything else.

The Two Routes

Pick by what you want to see. The Old Town tour is the one that reaches the cobbled streets, the Painted Doors and the fortress above the eastern seafront. The Essentials tour is the one for the parks, the Cathedral and São Pedro, and it finishes near the lower town where the cafés and the wine lodge sit.

Because both start in Santa Catarina Park, arrive early and you can walk the garden line afterwards in daylight. The operator states the city is hilly with stairs on the route and that the tours are not suitable for wheelchairs or pushchairs. Its advice is comfortable footwear, sunscreen, water, a hat, and a jacket and umbrella in winter.

What To Pay

Here is the negative finding stated plainly: the operator publishes no suggested amount. There is no tip range, no recommended figure and no minimum for individual travellers, only the phrase 'you choose how much you pay'. The one number that does exist is the prepayment rule.

Groups of 7 to 12 people on a shared tour must prepay $8.61 (€7.50) per person. That is a booking guarantee, not a suggested price. Anything you pay beyond that is entirely up to you, and no official source tells you what it should be.

If you want a fixed price instead, the students' union Old Town walking tour prints one.

The pattern is simple. Churches open early, museums and the City Hall open mid-morning, and the market closes early on Saturday. Build your route around the one timed entry you care about most and let the flat streets fill the gaps.

City buses cost $2.35 (€2.05) on board or $1.66 (€1.45) prepaid on a GIRO card if a leg turns out longer than your feet fancy, and the Aerobus from the airport stops at Mercado, Avenida do Mar, Lido and Fórum Madeira among others for $7.69 (€6.70) on board or $6.37 (€5.55) on a GIRO card.

The Old Town and the lower town are cobbled, and the calçada on Avenida Arriaga is polished stone that gets slippery when wet. The booking platform's listing for the Old Town walking tour describes easy terrain with cobbled streets and slight inclines. Anything uphill, Santa Clara, Quinta das Cruzes, Monte, costs you a climb, and the fair answer on Monte is to ride the cable car up at $18.37 (€16) one way and walk down only if you want to.

Average temperatures run about 18 °C in winter and 25 °C in summer on Visit Madeira's figures, so in summer start early and carry water. The free-tour operator's kit list is sensible for any walker: comfortable footwear, sunscreen, water, a hat, and a jacket and umbrella in winter. For the mountain routes beyond the city, see levada walks and Madeira hikes, which are a different proposition altogether.

No official source publishes a walking time, a route length or a distance between any two of these places in Funchal. Visit Madeira describes the promenade, the avenues and the Old Town without measuring them. The municipality's market site gives opening hours, not metres.

The tour operators give durations for their tours, which is not the same as a walking time for a route, and the free-tour operator's only distance-flavoured claim, that Barreirinha is 5 minutes from the cable car, is the operator's own description rather than an official figure. Inventing a number would break the only rule this guide has, so none appears here. Use instead what is published: opening hours, departure times, and the map below with real coordinates for every point on the routes.

Gauge pace yourself on the first leg of a walk and the rest of the day plans itself.

The flat four are your friends. The lower town, the gardens line and the promenade have no stairs in their descriptions, and the Municipal Garden and Santa Catarina Park both offer benches and shade. Praça do Povo was built for walking, jogging, cycling and rollerblading, which makes it the easiest stretch to cover with children in tow.

The cobbles of the Old Town are the rough part, and the free-tour operator states its routes are not suitable for wheelchairs or pushchairs because of hills and stairs. The guided Old Town walking tour listing warns that cobbled streets may be difficult for wheelchair users. If heat is the worry, the bathing complexes give a swim at the end of a promenade walk, with individual entry at $6.89 (€6).

For a sit-down alternative, the CR7 Museum on the Praça do Mar seafront opens Monday to Saturday 10:00-17:00 and publishes no entry price, and the Funchal cable car turns the Monte climb into a seated ride. For general island planning with a family, see Madeira with kids.

• The Great Fire of Funchal in 1584 damaged part of the area the Old Town tour now walks through, so some of what looks old was rebuilt after it (Madeiran Heritage).
• Avenida Arriaga only dates from 1914. The grandest street in the lower town is barely a century old (Visit Madeira).
• The seaside promenade's first western section opened in August 1993 under the name Lido Gardens, so the long walk west is younger than many of its palm trees (Visit Madeira).
• Santa Catarina Park's designer was inspired by Edinburgh's Botanic Gardens, which is why the park reads more like a landscaped garden than a town square (Madeiran Heritage).
• The Jesuits' College on the tour route keeps furniture and art from Quinta do Monte, where Charles of Habsburg lived and died, in a building whose first plan was sent to Rome in 1575 (Madeiran Heritage).

Start early at the Cathedral, which opens at 07:15 on weekdays and needs only a short visit. Walk Avenida Arriaga to the Municipal Garden while the calçada is in shade, then continue along the garden line to Santa Catarina Park and Quinta Vigia for the viewpoints over the port. Drop back to Praça do Município for the 11:00 City Hall guided tour if it is a weekday.

Eat near the Mercado dos Lavradores before it slows down, then spend the early afternoon on the Old Town loop: the Painted Doors, Rua de Santa Maria, Corpo Santo Chapel and the Socorro Church viewpoint. Finish at the Fortress of São Tiago and the cable car lower station in Jardim Almirante Reis. If your legs still work, ride up to Monte before the 17:45 close, or save Monte for its own day with the cable car and the toboggan.

On a Sunday the market is closed and City Hall is shut, so lead with the churches and the promenade instead.