Despite suggestions that driving in Madeira could be challenging, we decided to hire a small car for the week of our stay in Funchal, the capital.
You need to get into the right mind-set for this. Madeira has a mountainous terrain with steep ravines, and there are few stretches of road that are straight. Although there are quite a few kilometres of Via Rapida (two-lane dual carriageway) speeds can never be high and your concentration needs to be 100%. Even on the Via Rapida, for example, slip-roads are unbelievably short and tunnels frequent. Any manouvre needs a lot of care.
On minor roads, even in towns, there are often deep gulleys, rather than mere gutters, at the side for water drainage. Get your wheel in one of those and you are in trouble.
Road widths can vary enormously and suddenly; you need to know where the sides of your car are and what size gap it will fit into. Surfaces can be dramatically awful.
Funchal is a rabbit-warren of roads, some in tunnels, many narrow and one-way, often cobbled, which twist and turn so that all sense of direction can be lost. Signage can be inconsistent. Your navigational skills will be tested! We did not have a sat-nav and I often wondered how it would have coped with roads very close to, and in some cases, on top of, other roads.
The Portuguese have a reputation for bad driving, but I saw no evidence of it on Madeira, perhaps because most of the time speeds are necessarily slow. In town, drivers were unfailingly courteous to pedestrians, even when they were jay-walking. Parking is difficult in Funchal, but easy anywhere else.
As a footnote, do not be deterred from driving here because of the recent floods. Damage is restricted to a few areas and certainly all main roads are now open, albeit with temporary surfaces in some cases. (The road - recently re-opened - from Ribeira Brava in the south over the middle of the island to São Vicente in the north is fascinating and reveals some of the awful power of nature as well as the Madeiran capacity for hard work.) Certainly little or no impact on tourism will be made from now on.
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Driving in Madeira new
Driving in Madeira new