A walk with a view and a view with a see-through floor

Pretty viewpoint with a glass floor?

Say no more.

The look-out point of Cabo Girao, mentioned on multiple websites as well as from the mouth of the extremely friendly 7m car rental place employee Bruno, was not too far from our hotel, so when J suggested we walk it, I accepted happily. Okay, “not too far” is 13km, and this was after our intense hike down and especially up at Nun’s Valley, but I figured that after an intense hike up half a kilometre of mountain steps, a nice coastal walk would freshen me up.

So, we headed off on our walk. We walked through the western area of Funchal, full of its posh five-star hotels with fabulous swimming pools and smart-yet-bored-looking concierges (or maybe I say this just for poetic influence, since they were also all masked), down beautiful, windy wide streets. The views were exceptional, comme d’hab.

After the hotel areas we found ourselves on a lovely little walking bridge on the beach. Near here was the only sand we saw on our trip – black sand, like on Tenerife apparently, but it looked somewhat inviting.

By the time we reached the village of Camara Lobos about 9km later, I was feeling the exhaustion from the previous day’s climb. The little water fountain was a welcome friend.

I was feeling less optimistic about this little walk also when we actually googled info about Cabo Girao, our destination, which was boasting its status as “second highest cliff in the world”. And as we eyed the hill that rose up above us behind the quaint seaside village, I realised this was not going to be a nice flat walk. Obviously not.

And so we commenced the climb. Starting off with semi-steep streets, curving into a new area of more rural-vibed houses, gradually with more and more produce fields surrounding us. There were strawberries and bananas and avocados and beans and all sorts of weird and wonderful fruit n veg.

After the posh tourist vibes of the posh hotel area and the casual tourist vibes of the seaside village, this place felt like a world of its own – very traditional and local-feeling. We climbed and climbed, up slopes and up steps, wondering how fit every single person living in this area must be, how fit and how skilled at driving cars and trucks down and up these streets. Flabberghasting.

We circled round the whole bay area, with a gradual incline.

Then the steeper slopes arrived, and then the steps. The steps were more welcome than a steep uphill slope, and I managed to maintain some level of consistent speed (still consistently far behind J) by counting the steps – first in English, then trying out all the other languages I know (fun fact – I could count to 29 in Tatar, and then from 60 to 79, but nothing else), constantly slowing down when I got to 80 in French because despite having used French for about half my life, quatre-vingt-dix-sept etc still doesn’t always flow naturally off my tongue.

After long last we reached the famous last hundreds of metres which were blissfully FLAT. I felt like I was flying.

And as we turned the curve, now a main road, towards Cabo Girao we re-entered touristville, with souvenir shops and flashy ads for sightseeing buses, and fellow tourists.

The cliff itself? Spectacular. 580m high, we were right at the top and could look straight down. J said it was like watching views from an aeroplane.

The gimmicky bit of Cabo Girao was the aforementioned transparent floor. You could stand on it and look straight down at the sea lapping the shoreline half a kilometre beneath your trainers or, if you are German, your hiking boots. (J had told me that a surefire way of recognising a German tourist is that they have hiking boots. From our brief empiric study, this seemed to be rather a good defining mark indeed.) I wasn’t a huge fan of the floor to be honest, as it was covered in little white dots taking away from the atmospheric experience. When I commented my disappointment out loud, a nearby cheerful lady pointed out that the dots are probably there for “people like that”, nodding to another couple of people venturing gingerly onto the glass floor, not seeming massively enthusiastic about their current location.

So, for me, it was worth going for the views – and because they had made this viewing platform here, you could stand literally at the edge without fearing a cliff crumble and a quick 500m plunge to afterlife. So cheers guys for the viewing platform, but next time make your glass floor without the extra blobules pls.

Then we headed back. Downhill was obviously less sweaty than uphill, but I must say I was very happy to reach the flat ground again down below.

Cabo Girao, you killed me but you were FANTASTIC.

Some days later, a bit more refreshed, we ran to the coastal village and back (without the final uphill stint to the cliff, trust me). The weather was gorgeous and summery and sunny, and the run was exceptionally successful (I hadn’t gone for a run for MONTHS). Truly one of the highlights of the trip.

And that’s all I have for Madeira this time.

Toodaloo!

Emzy

xxx