PR14 Levada dos Cedros: the cedar levada through Fanal forest

PR14 is the trail people walk after they’ve already done PR13 and want more of the same forest without the meadow circus. Same laurissilva. No cows. Almost no people. The levada was cut into the hillside in the 1600s, which makes it one of the oldest still-running irrigation channels on the island, and the water is still moving past your boots as you walk.

The first time we did PR14 we got lost twice trying to find the trailhead lay-by on ER-209, drove past it three times in cloud, and finally pulled into a muddy verge that turned out to be the right one. Four years of running Banana House in Ponta do Sol, an hour from the start, and we still rotate through this hike a few times a year when guests want Fanal energy without the Instagram crowd.

This is how we walk it.

The trail in three sentences

PR14 Levada dos Cedros runs 7.2 km linear from the Fanal area of ER-209 down to Curral Falso on the same road, descending gently from 1,090m to 840m through the indigenous Laurissilva forest in the Madeira Natural Park. Three hours of walking, moderate, mostly flat with one steep section along the right bank of Ribeira da Janela. Permit is €4.50 per person via the SIMplifica portal (free under 12), same broken booking system we cover in our hiking permits 2026 guide, and you’ll save yourself a headache by going through madeira.fun/hiking instead.

Where it starts

The trailhead sits on ER-209, the road that crosses Paúl da Serra from the south to the north shoulder where Fanal sits. There’s no proper car park, no signpost worth seeing from a moving car, and no café within ten kilometres. What you’re looking for is a small lay-by on the side of the road about two kilometres south of the Fanal forestry house, with a wooden post and a faded yellow-and-red waymark.

GPS coordinates: 32.80610, -17.14085. Drop that into your phone the night before, because there’s no signal at the trailhead and the Google Maps pin for “Levada dos Cedros” puts you in the wrong place by about 400 metres.

The drive up is the same ER-101 climb out of Porto Moniz, or the ER-209 across the plateau from Paúl da Serra. Both roads go into cloud above 800m and both have hairpins that hide oncoming traffic. Second gear up and down, headlights on low, no high beams in fog. Allow 90 minutes from Ponta do Sol if the day is clear, two hours if it’s cloudy. We’ve done that drive in cloud thick enough to lose the bonnet of the car and we never want to do it in a hurry. More on the same climb in our PR13 Fanal guide.

Since PR14 is a linear trail and the two ends sit eight kilometres apart by road, you have three options.

• Two cars. Drop one at Curral Falso, drive the other to the start. The clean way to do it.
• Walk back the way you came. Turns a 7.2 km linear into a 14.4 km return, but the trail is gentle enough that this is what most people do. Adds ninety minutes.
• Hitchhike or call a taxi from Curral Falso. Sporadic. Don’t count on it. We’ve waited 40 minutes once for a passing car.

Our default with guests is the return walk. The forest looks different in reverse, the levada is on your other shoulder, and you catch a lot you missed on the way in.

What you actually walk through

The trail follows a levada cut directly into the soil of the hillside, which means there’s no concrete channel, no rebar, no engineering. You walk on a narrow path with a moss-lined trough of running water on one side and laurel forest dropping away on the other. The water comes from springs higher on Paúl da Serra and runs all the way down to the farms above Porto Moniz.

The forest itself is Laurissilva, the UNESCO-listed laurel forest that covers Madeira’s north slopes. Same ecosystem as PR13 but denser here, more enclosed, less broken up by meadow. The dominant tree is til (Ocotea foetens), with vinhático, barbusano, and laurel mixed in. The tils along PR14 are some of the tallest on the island. Thirty to forty metres of canopy above your head, light filtering down green and soft like you’re underwater.

A few things worth knowing as you walk.

• The name is misleading. “Cedros” means cedars. There are almost no cedars on this trail. The original Madeiran cedars (Juniperus cedrus) were logged out by the early settlers in the 1500s for furniture and ship building, and the forest grew back as the laurissilva you walk through today. The name is a memorial, not a description.
• The steep section. About halfway in, the levada follows the right bank of Ribeira da Janela river and the path narrows along a steep drop. It’s not exposed in the PR1 sense (no cables, no cliffs) but the ground falls away sharply for fifty metres and the path is roughly 60 cm wide with wet roots and slick rock. Two people can’t pass abreast here. Step into a wider bit and wait if you meet someone coming the other way.
• The water is drinkable. With caveats. The locals drink from these levadas all the time. We use a Sawyer filter or boil if we’re refilling because the upstream catchment has cattle.
• The 17th-century stonework. Look for the cut-stone retaining walls where the levada wraps around the steepest contours. Some of those stones have been holding water in place for over three hundred years.

Combining with PR13

This is the Fanal forest pair. Same ecosystem, different walks. We run them on separate days so guests don’t get forest fatigue. Here’s how we split them.

PR13 is the open one. Meadows, cows, the famous gnarled til trees in mist, the photographer pilgrimage. You move from forest into clearing into forest and back again. The trail goes from 1,420m down to 1,130m. Four hours. Photos to send home.

PR14 is the enclosed one. You’re under canopy almost the entire way, with the levada water as your soundtrack, and there’s no big “wow” moment where the forest opens up. Three hours. The walk is the point.

If you’re staying long enough to do both, we’d hike PR13 on the cloudiest day you get (for the postcard mist photos) and PR14 on a sunnier one (because the canopy filters the light better and the steep section is safer when the rocks are dry). Day-trippers usually pick PR13 for the photos. Month-stayers do both.

The other Fanal-area sister is PR15 Vereda da Ribeira da Janela, which descends the same river valley to the sea. PR14 + PR15 in the same day is a 14 km drop from 1,090m to sea level. We’ve done that with fit guests on a Sunday. Two cars or a taxi back, lunch waiting at Porto Moniz.

After the hike

Curral Falso, where PR14 ends, sits on ER-209 about fifteen minutes by car above Porto Moniz. The natural afternoon move is to drop down to the coast.

Porto Moniz has the volcanic pools. Lava formed natural basins that fill and refresh with the tide, and the water is cold enough (16 to 18°C in summer, lower in winter) to fix sore legs in about thirty seconds. €1.50 entry to the maintained pool complex, or free at the wilder rock pools fifty metres east. We use both depending on the crowd.

For food, our pick is Cachalote, the restaurant overlooking the pools. Skip the printed tourist menu and ask what came in that morning. Lapas (limpets) with garlic butter, grilled black scabbardfish with banana, a tin of Cuca beer, espresso. About €22 per person and worth every cent after four hours under the canopy.

If you’d rather skip the coast, Restaurante Solar dos Esmeraldos in Curral Falso itself is a roadside spot run by an old couple who do espetada and beans on a wood grill. No menu. They ask what you want and bring it. Cash only.

When to go

PR14 is hike-able year-round. Different month, different walk.

• October to March. Reliable cloud at the trailhead, soft light, the levada runs full. Bring waterproofs because mist soaks you in twenty minutes. Our favourite stretch for atmosphere.
• April to June. Wildflowers along the upper sections, dry trails, the steep bit is safest. Peak time for the laurissilva in bloom.
• July, August. Hot on the coast, cool under the canopy, but cloud often sits above the trail rather than in it so you lose the mist. The cattle smell on the steep section gets stronger in summer too.
• September. Our pick of the year. Crowds gone, water still warm at Porto Moniz, light is golden, trail is dry.

The forecast read is the same as PR13. South coast sunny + north coast cloudy = drive to Fanal. IPMA app and the Pico do Areeiro webcam by 7am give you the call. If Paúl da Serra is showing cloud at 1,200m, get in the car.

For the full month-by-month picture, our best time to visit Madeira guide covers what we tell guests when they’re picking a flight.

FAQ

How does PR14 compare to PR13? Same forest, different walk. PR13 is the iconic open one with the meadow and the cow trees and the photographs. PR14 is the enclosed levada through the canopy, more meditative, fewer people, no big “wow” moment. We run them on different days. If you have to pick one, PR13 wins for first-timers and PR14 wins for second visits.

Is the steep section dangerous? Not dangerous in the PR1 sense. No cables, no exposed cliffs, no scrambling. The trail narrows to about 60 cm along the right bank of Ribeira da Janela and the ground drops away for maybe fifty metres. Vertigo-prone hikers feel it more than the average walker. We’ve taken nervous guests through this section and nobody has had to turn around, but go slow and step into a wider spot if someone passes the other way.

Can I bring a dog? Yes, on a lead. The trail is gentle enough that most dogs do fine. The narrow steep section is the only spot we’d worry, and only with very small or very large dogs. Bring water for the dog because the levada is drinkable for people with a filter but not for thirsty dogs straight from the trough.

Do I need a permit for PR14? Yes. €4.50 per person via SIMplifica, free for kids 12 and under. Same broken booking portal as the rest of the PR system. Use madeira.fun/hiking for the working version. Our hiking permits 2026 guide walks you through it.

Is PR14 suitable for kids? From around age 8 with a careful adult. The trail is mostly flat and the canopy keeps the rain off, but the steep section needs a hand-hold for smaller kids. We’ve seen families walk the first kilometre and turn around happy, which is the cleanest version of this hike with young children.

Can I do PR14 without a car? Just barely. There’s no bus to the trailhead and no taxi rank within walking distance of either end. Your options are: hitch the climb up from Porto Moniz (sometimes works in summer, never in winter), arrange a one-way taxi from Funchal (around €70 to €80), or join the Sunday community hike on a week when Alex picks PR14 for the route. Most guests rent a car for hike days and skip the bus stress.

Is the levada water really drinkable? With caveats. Locals drink it. We use a Sawyer filter or boil because there are cattle in the upper catchment. If you’re filling a bottle anyway, take it from a fast-running section rather than a standing pool.

Stay a month and walk the quiet trails

PR13 is the trail everyone hikes. PR14 is the trail you hike on the second visit, when you’ve already filled the camera roll with the misty cow tree photos and you want a quieter morning in the same forest. Day-trippers don’t get to PR14 because it’s an hour from Funchal, eight kilometres point to point with no easy return, and there’s no Instagram payoff at the end. That’s exactly why we send month-stayers up there.

We run Banana House year-round, one-month minimum, forty-five minutes from the PR14 trailhead. 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 cloud. Cook together most nights, watch the forecast, drive up when the north coast looks ugly.

Pick a month. We’ll see you on the levada.

For the bigger picture, start with our Madeira hiking pillar.