Photo from author Dirk Klasseen in Wikipedia.
Problem
How to get around?
Answers
If you want to drive your own car, you can hire at the airport. Or go online, find a good deal and take a 5 euro taxi from a Funchal seafront hotel to the Europcar or other office in Funchal, the capital city. Booking through our hotel coast about 50 Euros a day, about what our friends paid for the whole week.
Your choices
Taxi tours. You have a choice of six different tours. The map of the tours was in the back seat pocket of the taxi we took from the airport to our hotel.
Open top hop on hop off bus tours with recorded guide:
Red buses.
Yellow buses.
One person said the yellow bus was very good and dropped her and her husband at the famous Reid hotel.
Local buses.
Levada walking tours.
Contact a company which does guided walking tours along the lavadas. I heard several guides who spoke fluent English as well as German and other languages, dropping into English when I stopped them, then back into German or other languages.
The cost of a guided Levada tour is about 12 euros for 2 persons, according to the sign on the tourist office kiosk which I passed late at night when it was closed.
Top sights include:
Botanical Gardens.
Wicker seated toboggan descent from uphill Monte, which I presume translates as Mountain or Mountain peak, pushed by two energetic people running in white suits.
Overlook At Cabo Girao, Camara de Lobos
One of the yellow top bus circuits takes you uphill to the unnerving glass-bottom lookout point, or Skywalk, which is free, at Cabo Girao, Camaara de Lobos. The open top yellow bus stops here. The viewpoint is a semi-circular suspended glass platform jutting out from the top of the cliffs, said to be the highest cliff skywalk in Europe.
Behind are a couple of snacks bars and various gift shops.
(The toilet costs 50 cents.)
Translation
I thought cabo was cape but Google Translate offered me cable. Nothing for Girao. Camara is chamber, de is in or of, lobos is wolf. So this was once a wolf's lair.
Easiest levada walks:
From Ribero (meaning river) Frio (meaning cold). The bus stops there. You can also park for free. The toilets are free in the cafe on the upper slope. The lady at the bar doesn't bother to check what you are doing although you walk past her. By the time you have done a half hour walk or two hour walk you are probably ready for a coffee anyway. Gift shop next door.
The walk on the lower slope (below the road) is alongside a levada, a canal about a foot wide alonside a wide path. The path eventually narrows.
On the upper side is another path, much easier, flatter, wide. A small cafe, barely more than a kisk is half way. At the end is a viewing platform with birds hoping for food.
Information
From the circular information kiosk on the front lawn of the seafront Pestana Casino Hotel.
Useful Websites
visitmadeira.com
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g1190957-d1464866-r179794621-Cabo_Girao-Camara_De_Lobos_Madeira_Madeira_Islands.html
http://www.visitmadeira.pt/en-gb/explore/detalhe/cabo-girao-viewpoint
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