Walking in Madeira: Pico Ruivo and Pico Arieiro / Cristiano Ronaldo

Madeira Walks

1. Walk – Ilha to Santana / Where is Madeira?
2. Walk – Pico Ruivo and Pico Arieiro / Cristiano Ronaldo
3. Walk – Monte to Camatcha / Wicker Sledge Riding
4. Walk – Camatcha to Santo da Serra / Madeira, the Flower Island
5. Walk – Santo da Serra to Portela / Levadas
6. Walk – Marocos to Caniçal / Public Transport on Madeira
7. Walk – Baia d’Abra / Tourism
8. Walk – Canical to Machico / Summary Walking Holiday

Teixeira to Poiso via Pico Ruivo and Pico Arieiro

Distance: 17.7km (11 miles)
Up: 783m
Down: 985m
Navigation: Cicerone Walking in Madeira Walk 23 (reverse), Madeira Tour & Trail Map (1:40000)
Stef’s review: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of the classic walks of Madeira. There is no public transport to Teixeira, so we booked a taxi from our hotel in Santana to Teixeira and started our walk around 8.45am. I was really looking forward to this walk as it covers the highest peak of Madeira, Pico Ruivo (1862m), the 3^rd highest peak, Pico Arieiro (1818m), and we passed the 2^nd highest peak of Madeira, Pico das Torres (1853m), which is located between Pico Ruivo and Pico Arieiro. The paths are well laid, save, and mostly wide enough to walk comfortably or they are secured by railings.

Stef’s Freak Out

Most people start at Pico Arieiro because it’s got a car park and do a circular walk from there to Pico Ruivo and back again. Now, this didn’t really fit into our plan so we decided to come from the back. Oh THANK GOD! Firstly, I wouldn’t have wanted to do the climbing up and down between Pico Arieiro and Pico Ruivo twice. JESUS! And secondly, ehm… I’m not a friend of heights, and there was one part close to the finish line that completely FREAKED ME OUT: we had brilliant weather, warm, sunny, but the clouds were hanging in the mountains, or more precise to left and right of that really narrow stretch with railings on both sides. Beautiful, but I’m not sure if the fact that I could see only clouds left and right helped my fear of heights or made it worse. But either way, I got such weak knees, I just ‘ran’ across that stretch which was what? 10 meters long? And it felt like an eternity. At the end of the stretch I couldn’t even look back on what I’ve just managed. The idea along made me feel sick. So I’m glad I had to do that only once and came from Teixeira rather than from Pico Arieiro. As a reward I got myself a Magnum Double Chocolate ice cream at one of the shops at Pico Arieiro. I even would have deserved two…

From there we walked down to Poiso and got the 103 bus to Monte. Alternatively, we could have called a taxi to bring us down to Poiso/Monte, but this way I could walk off my Magnum a little and due to the fact that we had to walk another 2k from our bus stop in Monte to our hotel, but we had gorgeous views over Funchal and its harbour.

Cristiano Ronaldo

Did you know that Cristiano Ronaldo was born on Madeira? I didn’t either. He grew up in Santo Antonio, a neighbourhood of Funchal, the capital of Madeira.
Cristiano Ronaldo opened his own CR7 Museum in Funchal in 2013 which is dedicated to his life in football from his early days in Madeira till his time Manchester United and Real Madrid and contains some of Ronaldo’s greatest prizes and trophies as well as shirts, shoes and other personal things. Part of the museum is an 11ft statue of himself and can be found on Funchal’s Plaza del Mar. Entry fee: 5€.

More about walking in Madeira:

– More photos of Pico Ruivo and Pico Arieiro
– Itinerary Madeira Walking Holidays
– Packing List Madeira Holidays