PR13 Vereda do Fanal: the misty laurel forest hike, walked properly

The first time we drove up to Fanal, we couldn’t see the bonnet of the car. Switchback after switchback on ER-101, cloud sitting on the road like a wet blanket, and then suddenly a clearing with shapes in it. The shapes were trees. Til trees. Some of them were already alive when Vikings were getting around to discovering Iceland. We parked, walked into the meadow, and a cow appeared out of the mist about ten metres in front of us, looked at us like we’d interrupted something, and walked off.

That’s Fanal on a good day.

PR13 is the long way through this forest. Most visitors drive up, take twenty photos in the meadow next to the car park, and drive back down. They miss the trail entirely. Four years of running Banana House in Ponta do Sol, forty-five minutes from the Fanal trailhead, and we’re still rotating through this hike a few times a year, mostly when the forecast looks ugly enough to keep the day-trippers home.

This is the version we walk.

The trail in three sentences

PR13 Vereda do Fanal runs 10.8 km linear from Paúl da Serra (Assobiadores) on ER-209 to the Fanal forestry house on the same road, dropping from a high of 1,420m to 1,130m through the densest stretch of laurissilva on the island. Four hours of walking, moderate, well-marked, almost flat in feel because you’re contouring rather than climbing. Permit is €4.50 per person via the SIMplifica portal (free under 12), and yes, that booking system is the same broken one we cover in our hiking permits 2026 guide. Book through madeira.fun/hiking instead and save yourself the headache.

Getting to Fanal: the ER-101 drive

The drive is half the experience and most of the bad reviews. Fanal sits at 1,150m on the western shoulder of the central spine, and you reach it via the ER-101 switchbacks climbing out of Porto Moniz or the ER-209 across Paúl da Serra from the south. Both roads go into cloud above roughly 800m. Both have hairpins that hide oncoming traffic.

A few things we tell guests every single time:

• Drive in second gear on the way up and on the way down. Engine braking saves your brakes and your nerves. We’ve smelled more burnt brake pads on Fanal switchbacks than anywhere else on the island.
• Headlights on, full beam off. High beams in fog blind you with your own light bouncing back. We watch tourists do this all winter.
• Pull over at the little dirt lay-bys if a local is behind you. They drive these roads twice a week and the courtesy gets returned.
• Allow 90 minutes from Ponta do Sol if it’s clear, two hours if it’s cloudy. We’ve never been wrong about this estimate.

Parking is at the Fanal forestry house car park on ER-209. Free, gravel, room for maybe forty cars. In summer it fills by 10am with rental cars. In winter you can have it to yourself at noon.

If you’re hiking the whole PR13 linear, you either need two cars (drop one at Assobiadores, drive the other to Fanal) or a willingness to walk it back the way you came (turning a 10.8 km linear into a 21 km return, which we’ve done once and would not do again). Most people hike Fanal as a half-trail from the forestry house: walk in for an hour or two, walk back the same way. That’s our usual rhythm.

Why we go when it’s foggy

This is the thing nobody tells first-time visitors. The photos that made you book the flight to Madeira, the ones with the gnarled black trees floating in white mist, those photos do not exist on a clear day. Clear days at Fanal show you a meadow with some old trees and some cows. Beautiful in its own way. But not the Fanal of the postcards.

The Fanal of the postcards is a temperature inversion. The trade winds push warm wet air up the north slopes. The air hits the laurissilva, cools against the trees, and dumps moisture as cloud that sits at exactly the elevation of the forest. Sometimes it’s a soft veil. Sometimes you can’t see ten metres. Either way, the trees become silhouettes, the air goes silent except for the drip of water off leaves, and every photographer who has ever come to Madeira has a Fanal picture in their portfolio.

So we check the forecast in reverse. South coast sunny + north coast cloudy = drive to Fanal. The IPMA app and the Pico do Areeiro webcam give us a read by 7am. If Paúl da Serra is showing cloud at 1,200m, we’re getting in the car.

Bring a microfibre cloth for the lens. Everything you carry gets wet, including the camera.

What you actually see

The forest is mostly til (Ocotea foetens), with stinkwood and laurel mixed in. The til trees here are some of the oldest living things in Macaronesia. The biggest specimens are estimated at over 500 years old, with a few that botanists have aged closer to a thousand. Some of them predate the Portuguese discovery of Madeira in 1419, which means these trees were already standing when there were no humans on the island at all.

A few features worth knowing about as you walk:

• The “cow trees.” Cattle have grazed the Fanal meadows for centuries. They scratch their flanks on the trunks, which polishes the lower bark smooth and twists the trees into the witchy shapes you see in every Instagram post. You’ll meet the cows. They are unbothered.
• Sítio do Fio. Midway along PR13 there are remains of an old cable system used to lower timber and goods from the high plateau down to Porto Moniz. The metal hardware is still in the trees if you look up.
• The small volcanic crater. Classified as a Rest and Quiet Reserve. You walk past it more than into it. The trail signs make it clear which is which.
• The “lake.” Most of the year the central meadow has a shallow pond in the middle that reflects the trees and the cloud and looks like something a fantasy illustrator dreamed up. In dry summers (we had one in 2024) the lake is just a damp patch of grass. Check Instagram tagged location the morning of for current water level.

Photo tips

A few things we’ve learned shooting Fanal in every kind of weather.

• Golden hour is overrated here. The best Fanal light is flat diffused mist at midday, not warm side-light at 6am. The mist softens everything to about an f/4 dreamscape regardless of your settings. If you only get one shot, go at noon in cloud.
• 35mm or 50mm is plenty. Wide angles flatten the trees. A normal lens (or the 1x on a phone) keeps the proportions. We see people show up with 16mm rectilinears and their photos look like a Halloween postcard.
• Skip the flash. Always. Built-in flash on a Fanal tree blasts the mist into a glaring white wall and kills the trees behind it. Use the available light. Long exposures if you have a tripod, or just push the ISO and trust the noise.
• Get low. Crouching changes the photo more than anything else. From standing height the trees look like trees. From a metre off the ground they look like creatures.
• Wait two minutes. The fog moves. Compose, then stand there. A trunk that was hidden when you set up will appear, and disappear, every thirty seconds. The best frame is usually the third or fourth one.

What to bring

Fanal has its own weather and it doesn’t care about the forecast. What we pack, year-round:

• Waterproof jacket and waterproof trousers. Not a windbreaker. A proper shell. The mist soaks you in twenty minutes.
• Layers. A base layer, a fleece, the shell. Air temperature at 1,200m sits 8 to 10°C cooler than Funchal, and the wet adds another 3 to 4°C of perceived cold.
• Hiking shoes with grip. The trail is mostly soft earth but it crosses sections of slick rock and tree roots. Trainers don’t cut it.
• A buff or beanie. The wind off Paúl da Serra goes through everything.
• A torch or headlamp. Not because the trail is dark, but because the cloud can drop visibility low enough that you want a beam pointing the way back to the car. We’ve used one twice on PR13 in four years.
• 1L of water and a snack. No food on the trail. The closest café is back down in Porto Moniz.
• Cash for parking attendants. Sometimes there’s an informal collector at the forestry house. Sometimes not. €1 to €2 if asked.

Combining with Porto Moniz

Fanal sits 25 minutes above Porto Moniz on ER-101. The natural pools at Porto Moniz are the obvious afternoon if you’ve hiked the morning. The water is cold (16 to 18°C in summer, lower in winter), the volcanic lava forms genuine pools that fill and refresh with the tide, and the swim feels earned after four hours in mist.

Our usual day: 8am leave Ponta do Sol, 9:30am at Fanal trailhead, hike until 1pm, drive down to Porto Moniz, late lunch at Cachalote (the restaurant overlooking the pools, fresh fish, ignore the tourist menu and ask what came in that morning), swim until you can’t feel your fingers, drive home along the south coast for sunset. That’s a full Madeira day. We do it three or four times a year with guests who’ve been around long enough to deserve the deluxe version. For everything else you can fit in the area, see things to do in Madeira.

FAQ

Is PR13 Fanal suitable for kids? From around age 7 with a careful adult. The trail is mostly flat and well-marked, no exposed drops, no tunnels. The mist can spook smaller kids the first time. We’ve seen families do the first kilometre and turn around happy. Keep them close in the meadow because the cows are placid but big.

Can I bring a dog? Yes, on a lead. The cows in the meadow are not interested in dogs and the dogs are usually not interested in cows, but a lead keeps everyone on speaking terms. Bring water for the dog because the standing water in the lake isn’t drinkable.

What if I go on a clear sunny day with no fog? You still get the trees, the meadow, the lake (if it has water), the views across Paúl da Serra. It’s a different hike. Beautiful in a normal way rather than a haunted-forest way. If you’re in Madeira for a week and the only Fanal day is a clear one, go anyway. If you’re staying a month, wait for the cloud.

Can I drive into the forest? You drive to the forest. The car park at Fanal forestry house puts you about thirty metres from the first big til trees and you can be in the meadow in two minutes. People with mobility issues can experience Fanal without doing PR13 at all. The trail proper is the walk through the forest, not the view of it.

Is the lake always full? No. The pond sits in a shallow depression and fills with rainwater. In wet years (most years) it’s there from October to June. In dry summers like 2024 it dries to bare grass by August. The reflections are best in winter and spring.

Is PR13 scary? No. It’s the gentlest of the famous Madeira hikes. No cliffs, no tunnels, no exposed sections, no scrambling. The only thing that catches people off guard is the silence. Fanal in fog is one of the quietest places on the island and it can feel uncanny if you’re not ready for it. If that’s the kind of “scary” you’re worried about, you’ll probably love it.

How does PR13 compare to PR14 Levada dos Cedros? Same forest, different walk. PR14 is the levada that drops out of Fanal towards Ribeira da Janela, shorter, more enclosed under the canopy, less of the open meadow. We do them on different days. If you have to pick one, PR13 is the iconic photo trail. PR14 is the meditative one. Both worth a morning.

Best time of year for Fanal mist? October through May for reliable cloud. June, July, August can still deliver but the cloud sits higher and the photos look less dramatic. November and February are our favourite months for atmosphere. Full month-by-month read in our best time to visit Madeira guide.

Stay a month and do Fanal in the right weather

Day-trippers hit Fanal in whatever weather they get and call it a Tuesday. The good version of this hike is the one you walk on the right day, not the day you booked. Cloud cycles through the laurissilva on its own schedule, not on your itinerary. Stay long enough and you’ll catch the morning when the mist sits at the meadow floor and the trees look like they’re standing in a pool of milk. That’s the morning the photos are for.

We run Banana House year-round, one-month minimum, forty-five minutes from the Fanal forestry house. Seven private rooms in Ponta do Sol on the dry sunny side of the island, which means your bed is in the sun while your hike is in the fog. Cook together most nights, watch the forecast, drive up when it looks ugly.

Pick a month. We’ll meet you at the cow trees.

For the bigger picture, start with our Madeira hiking pillar. The sister trail through the same forest is PR14 Levada dos Cedros.