Madeira Levada Walk

This day we undertook the most popular Levada walk in Madeira (or so some say, lol).

It is the walk of the PR6 Levada walk to 25 Fontes & Levada do Risco.  

This is a significant hike, consisting of a relatively easy, mostly all downhill on the first half , then a rather gruelling uphill climb back from once you came!  The hike does have sections with a significant number of steep stone stairs.  They are not dangerous in any way, just tiring, lol.  It is about 11 kilometres and takes 3-4 hours.  

It is a very scenic hike through the forest to two magnificent waterfalls.  You walk much of the trail alongside the Levada.  A Levada is an irrigation channel built hundreds of years ago to transport water from the mountains to the coast.  Think Roman Aquaduct, only along the ground.   In Madeira they have converted these Levadas by making them into hiking trails.  There are quite a few Levada trails in Madeira.

We drove to the start of this hike and parked in the gravel public “lot”.  Note that parking is very limited and as the day goes people are parked all over the place, roadside and the like.  You can also do this hike as part of an organized tour.  We did it on our own.  There are many tourists on this hike with you.  However, we did see people starting this hike when we finished, later in the day, carrying no water or jacket and we were thinking, omg, they may not finish before dark - this is when tourists require rescues, lol. There is little cell service as you get farther into the hike.

It was cool when we started this hike and much is in the shade, but we had rain jackets just in case and dressed in layers, which we shed as we progressed and it warmed up.  

Here are some pictures