Madeira – Cruising the North Coast

November 22^nd, 2025 

We awoke to a lovely sunset…well, mainly Naomi enjoyed it on our balcony, I took a few glimpses and rolled back into bed.

 

The start of a lovely sunrise on the north coast of Madeira.

Naomi did a nice time lapse of the sunrise.

Our plan today was to cruise along the north coast of Madeira and see what we could see.  Naomi had a few stops already planned from her research which included some viewpoints, a beach and a small town.

Naomi really liked this tunnel, which was different than most on the island.

Driving on the curvy roads of the northern coast of Madeira.

It is a lush island!

Madeira has some lovely coastlines...but alot of it is not terribly usable, other than looking at.  There aren't that many nice, sandy beaches.

Yup, rain again...

Some more amazing tilework...the Portuguese love their tiles.

A nice waterfall before a tunnel that heads upwards in the mountain.

The beach or "praia" in Portuguese that Naomi wanted to visit was called Seixal Beach...also known as the "black beach" since the sand is dark in colour.  Many think it looks a bit like Hawaii with the dark sand and steep, lush mountainsides.  I’ve been to Oahu and Kauai, and I agree.

It's one of the few sandy beaches on the island.

A 360 Naomi-rama on the beach.

Students of a surfing school walked out onto the beach.

Looks like they're heading out to catch some waves...

Well, not so fast.  Let's go over the basics first.

There was a “natural pool” at one end of the beach too.  A swimming area that had some concrete blocks added to some rocks near the shore to create a protected calm area to take a dip if you were so inclined.  It wasn’t that hot, so we weren’t tempted, plus we hadn’t brought our swimming gear with us, so it wasn’t an option.

I'm about to dive into a sheltered swimming area...but I forgot my trunks.

There are a number of these kind of swimming spots around the island.  I guess it's a good way to provide safe swimming in the ocean.

Waves crashing against the breakwater for the swimming spot.

A ruddy turnstone bird enjoying the beach.

Hard to see in the photo, but Naomi's near a little waterfall on the beach.

On our way out of town, we stopped for a photo at a viewpoint and noticed this.  Also hard to see, but there's another man-made swimming spot down there. 

Going for my "Insta-pose" as Naomi would call it.

We pulled off the main road to try and get some photos with these palm trees.

Another nice "miradouro" - viewpoint in Portuguese.

A secret to life it to be a kid whenever you can!

A lovely view, but what struck me more was that there looked to be an old woman tending to her hillside garden by her small home on the right.  It looked like she enjoys a peaceful, but hardworking life.

We continued west, with our next stop being Porto Moniz, a slightly larger town which also had some natural pools which were more impressive, and hence they charged a fee to swim in them.

The "Natural Swimming Pools" of Porto Moniz are behind us.

Yes, kind of natural...with a bit of help from humans.  On a hot day, it would be tempting to go for a dip, but today there were only a few people braving the elements.

While eating lunch, mine was a crappy ham and cheese toastie, we noticed that Google Maps and Waze were both showing that a portion of the road on our way back to the hotel was closed.  What?!?  We did some research and saw that there it was the last day of a three-day Madeira Rally Classic car event.  Damn.  How did the concierge not mention this when we spoke to him about our plans this morning?  Naomi called the hotel and found out that they were somehow surprised by it too.  This meant that our drive back would be almost an hour and a half, going down to the south coast, through Funchal and back around the east coast past the airport.  It should have been a 45-minute drive back along the coast.  Oh well, we resigned ourselves to a longer drive once we finished lunch.

The start of the drive took us east along the north coast before it was going to head to the south coast and we figured we’d check again before committing to the longer drive.  Thankfully it looked like the road had opened up!  As we drove, we did see evidence of the rally race with some steel fence barriers here and there and flagging tape preventing people from backing their cars out of their driveway onto the road or pedestrians stepping out in front of a rally car.

Before heading to the hotel, Naomi wanted to check out a restaurant which specialized in “Meat on a Stick” as she called it.  I figured it was just a shish kebob…but it turned out to be a little different.  We were not hungry in the least, having had a late lunch, but we thought we’d check it out for tonight’s dinner as it also had a great viewpoint which we wanted to see in the daylight.

Back near Santana, checking out the view at the Cabo Aereo Restaurant that Naomi had read about.

A bald man in his late 50s who was cooking some “meat on a stick” in a wood-fired hearth in a covered area beside the main part of the restaurant.  Turns out he was the owner and main chef named Cristiano.  He was super friendly and was happy to answer Naomi’s questions about the cooking process.  He used different types of tree branches, like laurel ones, which would give the meat of fish as specific taste.  With the beef, he would only season it with big grains of salt, nothing else.  We mentioned that we weren’t hungry, but promised to return at 7 pm, before they closed at 8.

The owner/chef, Cristiano.

Cristiano's passion for his cooking was obvious.

A few of the rally cars were in the parking lot of our hotel, about to head back to Funchal for an evening wrap-up event for their rally.

I liked the headlights on this one.

We returned in the early evening, excited about our upcoming meal, and it did not disappoint.  We decided to share one portion of the steak on a stick, some potatoes and a salad.  Naomi prefers her steak well done whereas I’m a medium rare guy.  Cristiano did a great job of meeting in the middle…although I have to admit, I think the steak would have been even tastier if it wasn’t cooked quite as long as it was.  But hey, in relationships you have to make compromises right!?!  ;)

Cristiano delivering the goods!

Oh boy, it looks good.

After dinner, Naomi and Cristiano enjoyed some Pancho drink that he concoted.

They have a "wall of fame" of diners...we weren't sure how you got your photo up there, but Naomi asked some questions about what kind of camera they were using for this and...

...we made the wall!

It was a simple, yet super tasty meal and Cristiano and his staff were amazing.  When travelling, you sometimes uncover hidden gems of various types…and this was definitely one of those!