PR3.1 Caminho Real do Monte: the old royal path from Monte to Camacha

Most guides skip this one. The cable car up to Monte is the photo people post. The toboggan back down is the video. Almost nobody walks the 4.2km of cobblestones between the two, which was the original reason the village existed. PR3.1 was the main road from Funchal up into the hills before tarmac arrived, and it’s still there, still walkable, signed by the regional government, mossy at the edges. We send guests up the cable car with one-way tickets and tell them to walk back.

PR3.1 is what’s left of one of the caminhos reais, the royal roads that carried people, post and produce across the island from the 16th century. Number 24 in the old register, running between the parish of Monte and Ribeira das Cales in the Funchal Ecological Park, up in the hills toward Camacha. The official route is 4.2km one way, rated moderate, around two hours. It takes you from a baroque church square at 550m to a viewpoint at 1,129m, past a levada from 1784, through laurel forest with the south coast spread out below.

Trail in three sentences

It’s 4.2km one way between Ribeira das Cales (1,130m) and Monte (550m), so 580m of elevation change across roughly two hours, rated moderate by the regional government. Walked downhill, the cobbles keep the gradient steady and your knees do most of the work. Walked uphill, the same 4.2km becomes a proper leg day.

Where it starts (Monte, the cable car option to get up)

The walkable version starts in Monte. You can drive up the ER-103, but the cable car from Funchal old town is the better way in. The Teleférico do Funchal leaves from the bottom station near the Mercado dos Lavradores and climbs 560m up the hillside in about 15 minutes. €18 return, €12.50 one-way. Get the one-way ticket. The path is the descent, the toboggan takes care of the rest.

The cable car drops you at Largo da Fonte, the small square at the centre of Monte. Nossa Senhora do Monte church sits above it at the top of 74 stone steps. Whitewashed walls, twin towers, baroque interior, and the tomb of Karl I, the last Austrian emperor, who died in exile on Madeira in 1922. We send guests inside for ten minutes before they start walking. The trail marker sits a few hundred metres east of the steps. The path leaves Monte as a cobbled lane and the first 500m climb past the last houses until the forest takes over.

What you actually walk through (cobblestones, viewpoints, terraces)

The surface is calçada portuguesa in the old style. Hand-laid basalt cobbles, worn smooth in the centre by 400 years of foot and hoof traffic, mossy at the edges where the laurel leans in. This isn’t a levada path. It’s a road, narrower than two carts wide, climbing through old terraces and forest along the contours of the hill.

About a kilometre in you cross the Levada das Cales. The plaque dates it to 1784. The channel still carries water and the path runs alongside it where both share a contour. Most levadas on Madeira are 19th or 20th century. Walking next to one from before the French Revolution is the kind of detail that doesn’t land until you stop and read the stone.

The forest here is mixed. Indigenous laurissilva (the UNESCO-protected laurel forest we cover in the hiking pillar) shares the slope with planted eucalyptus, cedar, and old chestnut. It’s not the deep laurel of PR11 Vereda dos Balcões. This is working forest that turned into walking forest when the road went out of use. The Madeiran chaffinch and the chiffchaff live in this band of altitude and you’ll hear them before you see them.

The path keeps climbing toward Pico Alto. The viewpoint sits at 1,129m and the panorama is the south coast laid out below. Funchal directly underneath, the airport runway running east toward Caniço, the cone of Cabo Girão visible to the west on a clear day, the Atlantic going on forever. We’ve taken the same photo from this terrace three times and the colour of the sea is different every time. Bring water. There’s no refill between Monte and Ribeira das Cales.

Past Pico Alto the trail finishes at the Ribeira das Cales welcome centre of the Funchal Ecological Park. Small visitor building, a plant nursery for native species, picnic tables under the trees. From here you’re a 15-minute drive from Camacha if you arranged a pickup. The wicker workshops of Camacha sit 5km further north along the ER-202.

Combining with Monte garden, the toboggan, Camacha basketwork village

Most people do the cable car, the church, the toboggan, and miss the path. The full Monte day is the rides and the walk.

Our usual rotation, top to bottom:

1. 9am. Cable car up from Funchal. Coffee at the kiosk in Largo da Fonte.
2. 9.45am. Walk through Nossa Senhora do Monte. Ten minutes.
3. 10am. Monte Palace Madeira garden. This is the one to pay for. €15, 70,000 square metres of tropical and Japanese garden built into the old hotel grounds by José Berardo, koi ponds, ceramic tile collection, an actual cycad from the Jurassic. Allow 90 minutes.
4. 11.30am. Pick up the PR3.1 trailhead near the church. Walk uphill to Ribeira das Cales. Two hours moderate.
5. 1.30pm. Picnic at the welcome centre, or arrange a taxi from Camacha to drive you on into the village for lunch.
6. 3pm. Camacha. The Café Relógio building is the basketwork showroom. Vimes (wicker) has been Camacha’s craft since the 1850s and the workshop demos still happen on weekday afternoons.
7. 5pm. Taxi back to Monte. Toboggan down. Two men in straw hats and white linen push you through the streets of Livramento in a wicker sled on greased wooden runners at 30km/h. €35 for two people, 10 minutes, ends where another taxi takes you back to Funchal.

That’s the whole day.

If you want to flip it and walk uphill from Monte to Ribeira das Cales, do the toboggan early, drive up to Camacha first, taxi to Ribeira das Cales, walk down to Monte, finish on the cable car.

After-hike

You finish in Monte if you walked downhill, or in Ribeira das Cales if you walked up. From Monte the cable car back to Funchal old town drops you 200m from any of the poncha bars on Rua de Santa Maria. We send guests to Venda da Donna Maria for a poncha regional (lemon, sugar cane spirit, honey, beaten with a wooden mexelote). One drink, share a pastel de nata, walk down to the marina. The rest of the Funchal walking list starts from there. From Ribeira das Cales, the welcome centre serves coffee and bolo do caco with garlic butter. We’ve eaten worse trailhead snacks.

A proper meal for the full Monte day belongs back in Funchal: Restaurante Santa Maria in the old town does peixe espada com banana (scabbardfish with banana, which sounds wrong and tastes right) for around €18.

FAQ

How long does PR3.1 take?

Two hours moderate, both directions, 4.2km one way. Add an hour for the Pico Alto viewpoint and photos. Add 90 minutes for Monte Palace garden if you do the full day.

Do I need a permit?

No. PR3.1 isn’t in the SIMplifica permit system as of June 2026. Free to walk, no booking. This may change in 2027.

Can I walk it in the opposite direction (Ribeira das Cales to Monte)?

Yes. Downhill from Ribeira das Cales is the easier direction. You finish in Monte and pick up the cable car or the toboggan. We prefer this if you’re shuttling cars or splitting the group.

How do I get to Ribeira das Cales without a car?

Taxi from Camacha (€10) or Funchal (€25). Bus 56 from Funchal serves Camacha but the connection to the welcome centre is unreliable. The cable car to Monte is the simpler entry point, and the path walks uphill from there.

Is the path slippery?

The cobbles get slick in rain and there’s moss at the edges. We hike it in approach shoes with grip. Not a problem in dry weather. The trail can flood briefly in heavy winter rain.

Can children do it?

Yes, from around 8 if they can walk 4km. The cobbles can be tiring on small legs going downhill. There are no exposed drops.

Best time of year?

Spring (March to May) for flowers along the path. Autumn (September, October) for cooler air and clear views. Summer is doable early in the morning before the cloud builds over the hills. See our best time to visit Madeira guide for the full picture by month.

Stay a month and do Madeira properly

PR3.1 is the historian’s hike. You don’t book the flight for it. You tell people about it once you’re home and they ask what the best day on the island was. Stay a month at Banana House and you stop optimising for the headline trails. You walk PR1 on the morning the sky lines up. You do PR8 on the windy day. And on a Saturday with nothing else on, you take the cable car up to Monte, walk an old royal road through the laurels, and toboggan back to dinner.

The rest of the Madeira hiking list is what the month is for.

See you on the path.