Curral das Freiras – second to nun

One thing that seemed both intriguing and feasible without a car was a trip to the famous Curral das Freiras, Nun’s Valley. What was it? A village in a valley, basically, where once upon time a group of nuns fled to escape pirates (in 1566 to be precise).

Today, it is nunless but nonetheless meant to be atmospheric.

The Valley of the Nuns is situated in what used to be thought of as the crater of an extinct volcano (nowadays the theory of erosion seems more popular?), 461m above sea level. The surrounding mountains are obviously a bit higher.

A website I consulted described the bus ride to Nun’s Valley as “the bus journey of doom” and “a vomit-inducing journey with sheer drops on the side of the road” which obviously made it even more exciting.

Madeira is famous for its “need” for a car, which we didn’t have, so getting a bus somewhere sounded tempting. There was a very clear and helpful post in TripAdvisor written just a week or two earlier with instructions to get to the place – get the bus number 81 from the central bus area, get off at Eira do Serrado, walk down to Nun’s Valley. “No one else in sight,” they promised.

Clearly we were not the only tourists who’d read that recent TripAdvisor post, as we recognised our bus by the number of non-local-looking people with colourful sports clothes, hiking boots and various levels of cameras hovering around it. At each bus stop more tourists stepped in, most asking the bus driver about “Eira do Serrado”. Okay, well we were in the correct bus at least.

The bus climbed up the steep streets of the city of Funchal, with excellent views on all sides. The best bit came when we left the house-rimmed roads and replaced them with them famous sheer drop-rimmed roads. It wasn’t just once that I compared the drive to a funfair ride. There was a vertical rise of mountain on the right, while on the left there was often just a low-rise concrete rail and a vertical drop. It was especially fun when another vehicle or bus was approaching us from the other direction.

Anyhoos, we made it up to Eira do Serrado, very clearly sign-posted, and very cold in the high mountain air. I ran up to the nearby railings and the views were phenomenal and literally breath-taking (though the cold air may’ve partaken in this feeling).

The main miradouro aka viewpoint boasted a nearly dreamlike Inception-style warped view where the view below you continued so high that it felt like it was a vertical wall in front of you. I’ve never experienced anything alike, ever.

After wandering and wondering the views, we set off on the famed walk down to the Valley of the Nun’s. One source said fifty minutes, one said an hour and a quarter – we did it in just over an hour, with frequent stops and lots of pictures taken (genre “go over there and I’ll wait here and take pics”). Unlike the TripAdvisor post celebrating the fact they were the only ones there, the other avid TripAdvisists joined us on the walk – though in the end we were pretty spread apart and for long stints it was just us.

We passed a black-haired woman dressed all in black who J guessed to be Finnish, but when she smiled at us and said “hello” as she passed, I told J she most definitely is not Finnish as Finns would never practise their vocal cords on strangers.

The village of the Valley of the Nuns is nothing special or especially interesting, but maybe that was exactly what made it so special. Here it was, a pretty non-descript little village with one main road and a bunch of shops and little restaurants in the centre, right bang wollop in the middle of these imposing mountains on each side. Minding its own business, ignoring the majestic yet intimidating giant gargoyles surrounding it.

We wandered the streets and bumped into one of the most impressive cemeteries I’ve been to – it wasn’t just nuns from a hundred years ago, but also very recent graves from last year and this year too.

We settled on a bench in the middle of the village and enjoyed our cheese sarnies made from smuggled breakfast buffet bread rolls, watched the local kids play in the middle of the road, and I wandered the handful of tourist shops and allowed a shop assistant to persuade me into buying a traditional chestnut “biscuit”, more like a soft chestnut bun tbh.

Please also note the varied weather we had that day.

We’d spotted a few buses and briefly contemplated getting a bus from down here instead of walking back to the Eira do Serrado viewpoint, but decided we both were keen for the climb back up. We decided we’d get the bus leaving Eira at 3pm, giving us a leisurely two hoursish for the one hour climb back.

The climb back was epic. Intense, but epic. Great exercise, all those steps. Maybe would’ve been a bit annoyingly exhausting had the views been less phenomenal, but you cannot feel miserable or tired surrounded by Nun Valley mountains, never.

Since the walk up involved very few pics and even less talking, we made it quite quickly to the top. Sometimes we stopped to watch the buses down below, wondering which one we could’ve taken.

As we clambered, exhausted, onto the Eira do Serrado platform, we saw a bus approaching us. Ours wasn’t due for an hour, but we went to have a look at it anyways.

Funchal, said the front display. Our destination.

We looked at each other. Confusing, but seemed a legit choice for us. We clambered into the bus, and the bus driver didn’t kick us out when I requested two tickets for Funchal, so we figured this was our bus. Half an hour late or an hour early, or were the timetables faulty or our analysis of the timetables, we never knew. All we knew was that we were on a bus back to Funchal, conveniently with just two seats free, coincidently in front of the all-in-black non-Finnish woman we’d greeted earlier on our trip.

She greeted us happily and praised our endeavours of climbing back the hill. She, like most others, had taken the bus from the Nun Valley.

I made a bit of polite small talk and then got out our gigantic bottle of water to down about half of it. About three sips in, the woman behind us exclaimed, in Finnish: “You’re from Finland!?”

I could no longer concentrate on guzzling down my water as I turned to her to reply “yes, actually, but how did you suddenly randomly clock that now?” Ah yes, our water bottle had been purchased at Helsinki airport was plastered in Finnish texts.

So, I was wrong, J was right, this friendly talkative woman was indeed Finnish. We chatted during the bus trip – she was a solo traveller with no driver’s license let alone car, but she gave us lots of tips about what to do and where to visit. Just before our stop I picked up my courage to do the always-so-nerve-racking – ask for her contact details. I’ve often been the solo traveller happy to make travel friends, and even tho obviously she may’ve been a hermit solo traveller avidly against spending time with people, one can always try? J was working during most days so I had a lot of alone time and I love making travel friends.

So, T and I exchanged numbers and eventually met up for a nice walk and a lovely passion fruit juice and coffee sesh at a windy sunny shoreside café some days later (see previous entry for that). Yay for travel friends!

We returned from the Nun Valley exhausted but determined not to give in to tiredness, so we wandered the Yellow Fort and the old town before returning back to the hotel for our traditional balcony dinner while observing the dodgy happenings of the balcony opposite (truly creepy – our guess was it was some level of air bnb because every night there seemed to be a completely different genre of people – one evening there were some teen boys smoking something which probably was illegal and shouting down to people on the street below, the next evening Frank Sinatra was playing from the completely empty-seeming living room, the next evening there were a few girls, and the final night we woke up to some eerie 1920s karaoke party vibes, maybe a bit like from the Shining or something. All I know is I woke up and felt creeped out and was intrigued and wanted to go and peek through the curtains to see who there was this time, but actually feeling too scared to – what if I saw something that would forever question my belief in reality….…)

Okay but we went off-topic now. That was the story of the Valley of the Nuns.

Toodaloo,

Emzy

xxx