Levada do Rei (PR18), Madeira

The Two Official Descriptions Side By Side

The IFCN trail board at the start and the Visit Madeira trail page agree on the distance and the route. They differ on the highest point and on who grades the difficulty. The IFCN classified trail register publishes the distance only, 5.3 km plus 5.3 km return, with no duration and no difficulty grade at all.

Is The 3h30 One Way Or Return?

Neither source says. The IFCN board prints 3h30 with no direction, and Visit Madeira writes that the walk takes about 3:30 hours over what it describes as a 10.6 km round trip. Our reading of Visit Madeira's sentence is that 3h30 covers the whole out and back, and a 10.6 km walk at a relaxed levada pace fits that.

But the board's silence means you should plan for the longer reading. Our estimate is to give the walk between 3h30 and 5 hours door to door, which also covers a slower pace and a proper stop at Ribeiro Bonito. If you start early, the question stops mattering.

How The Booking Works Step By Step

SIMplifica's own tutorial video shows the whole flow and it takes about a minute to read. You do not need to register on the portal. You choose the route, the date and the slot, pay, and receive the tickets by email with a wallet pass for your phone.

• Open Ticketing on SIMplifica and choose Payment of Fees for Access to Classified Hiking Trails, then Request.
• Enter your email for the tickets and tick the acknowledgement that trail users are personally responsible for any damage.
• Select the number of tickets per category: visitor over 12, visitor 12 and under, and the disability and resident categories.
• Choose PR18 and the booking period, date and slot. Full slots are blocked automatically.
• Pay by credit or debit card, Multibanco or MB WAY. The invoice, credential and electronic ticket arrive by email.

Price, Who Pays, Who Walks Free

The PR18 fee is $5.17 (€4.50) for visitors over 12. Children 12 and under, Madeira residents and people with 60% or more disability travelling with a companion walk free, but every one of them still needs a booked slot. If you plan several trails, there is no separate pass product: you select each trail and the system applies the most advantageous rate, with day passes for two or more trails starting at $10.33 (€9) for one day.

Passes still require a booking and a slot per trail, and they never include PR1.

• Same day and next day bookings are possible, subject to availability.
• There is about 15 minutes of tolerance around your entry time, a little more for hikers linking trails in sequence.
• No official page states a maximum advance booking window for PR18.
• A guide is not mandatory on any classified trail.
• The SIMplifica Contact Center works working days 09:00-18:00 on free line 800 29 90 90 and WhatsApp +351 926 155 465, but it cannot change or refund a paid booking. Refund and reschedule requests go to IFCN at helpdesk.ifcn@madeira.gov.pt.
• A refund is only due when IFCN or the authorities close or restrict the trail on your booked date, requested within 10 working days. Rain, illness or a wrong date earn nothing.

If Something Goes Wrong With Your Booking

One known trap: SIMplifica sometimes emails that a booking was cancelled for inactivity even when you already hold tickets. Compare the reference numbers. Different reference means it refers to an earlier incomplete attempt and you can ignore it.

The same reference means forward the email to IFCN. Everything about the fee system, including every other trail's price, sits on our Madeira trail fees page.

The Numbers Behind The Grade

The IFCN board gives a highest point of 578 m and a lowest of 535 m. Our sum from those board figures makes the total climb from low to high point about 43 metres spread over 5.3 km, which is a near flat contour walk along a water channel. Visit Madeira prints 573 m for the maximum instead of the board's 578 m.

We print the board's figure and note the difference. The IFCN classified trail register itself publishes no difficulty grade for any trail, only distances, so the word moderate is Visit Madeira's, and the 3h30 is the board's and Visit Madeira's.

• 43 metres of climb across 10.6 km round trip is less than many town hills. Our estimate: most healthy adults and steady children manage this walk.
• The path runs beside water. The board warns it may be slippery, so non-slip footwear is not a suggestion.
• There is a danger of vertigo per the board, so if drops beside channels bother you, keep to the wall side and take your time.
• Sections pass through tunnels of vegetation. This means dense plants arching over the path, not rock tunnels, and nothing official describes rock tunnels on PR18.

What The Board Asks Of You

The safety code on the IFCN board is short. Never walk alone. Carry a charged phone.

Confirm the time so you finish before nightfall. Stay on the track. If the route is blocked, turn back the same way.

Bikes and motorbikes are banned and so are fires. Emergency number 112, Proteção Civil +351 291 700 112, Táxis Santana +351 291 572 540.

Three Centuries Of Grinding

The mill is about three hundred years old and still working, the only one of its kind still operating according to Visit Madeira. It grinds wheat, maize, barley and rye grown on the terraces of São Jorge, driven by the waters of the levada itself. No hours or address for the mill are published on any source we read, so treat it as a possible stop rather than a planned appointment, and ask locally in São Jorge if it matters to your day.

Driving, And What Is Not Published

No bus line to the trailhead appears in any of our sources, so you drive, take a taxi, or join a tour that does not actually walk PR18. No parking information is published either, and no water or toilets are described at the start. Plan as if there are no facilities at the ETA: carry your water, use facilities before you arrive, and keep valuables out of sight.

Santana village itself sits inland on the north coast and is covered on our Santana page.

• By car: hire gives you the only realistic access. Compare options on car hire in Madeira.
• By taxi: the IFCN board itself prints Táxis Santana on +351 291 572 540, and our Madeira taxi page explains how taxis work on the island.
• By bus: not stated. No source we read lists a bus stop at the trailhead.
• Finish GPS, if you navigate the route itself: Ribeiro Bonito at 32.79611, -16.93812. The walk is out and back, so you return to the same plant.

Five facts from the official sources, each with where it comes from.

• Ribeiro Bonito, the walk's finish, is also a canyoning descent of 2 km with 12 rappels, a 50 m maximum rappel and a 50 m waterfall, and the canyon's exit is the Levada do Rei itself, so walkers sometimes meet canyoneers climbing out of the riverbed (Visit Madeira, canyoning page).
• The IFCN register and Visit Madeira disagree by 5 metres on the trail's highest point, 578 m on the board against 573 m on the tourism page, a reminder that even official sources round their survey figures differently (IFCN board and Visit Madeira).
• The water channel powers a working flour mill about three hundred years old that grinds wheat, maize, barley and rye from São Jorge's terraces, and neither the board nor Visit Madeira publishes hours or an address for it (IFCN board and Visit Madeira).
• No source publishes the trail's opening hours because it has none, no parking layout, and no water or toilets at the start, which is why locals fill bottles before leaving São Jorge (negative findings from IFCN board, Visit Madeira and the IFCN register).
• If the path is blocked ahead, the board's instruction is not to climb around it but to turn back and walk the same 5.3 km home, a rule that surprises walkers used to loop trails (IFCN trail board PR18).

The table compares three ways to spend the day, from the bare out and back to a full east coast circuit. Driving times are not stated by any official source, so the routings count only walking time plus a buffer.

Start Early, Whatever You Choose

The board's code tells you to confirm the time so you finish before nightfall. Combine that with the 3h30 ambiguity and the sensible habit is obvious: take the earliest slot SIMplifica offers, so even the slow reading of the duration ends in daylight.

PR18 is a morning or full morning walk that rewards an early start. Take the first SIMplifica slot of the day, drive to Quebradas with water and snacks, and you can be back at the car by early afternoon even at the slow reading of the 3h30. That leaves the second half of the day for the same municipality: Santana's thatched houses, the north coast road, or simply a slow lunch in São Jorge. Because no official source publishes drive times to the trailhead, do not chain the walk to a fixed afternoon booking on your first visit.

If you would rather not drive at all, the honest choice is a different trail. The guided levada day closest in spirit is the Caldeirão Verde walk, also on the north side, with hotel pickup and a waterfall at the end. For the full east coast in one motorised day, the circuit that includes Santana and the Balcões levada works well, and both are compared in the table at the top of this page. And if Ribeiro Bonito's riverbed caught your eye from the path, the same valley is a canyoning descent for a return trip with ropes.