Part of our complete guide: Activities and tours on Madeira
Food and wine tours in Funchal
Food and Wine Walking Tour, from about €95, 3.5 hours. Small group, several stops in the old town, tastings along the way. Taste Funchal, four hours, from about €93, over 820 reviews at 4.8 — culinary plus cultural.
Self-guided tapas tour, from about €55. Vouchers for several restaurants, your own timing, no guide. For people who do not need the commentary but appreciate the shortlist.
Expect €90 to €100 for a guided tour — this is the category with the island’s highest entry prices and the thinnest supply.
Madeira wine
Guided tasting, three wines, from about €35, one hour. The quick, serious introduction. Madeira wine is not the dessert-wine cliché — Sercial is dry, and the difference between five and ten years old is immediately obvious side by side.
Wine lodge tours: Blandy’s Wine Lodge in the middle of Funchal is the best-known address; its own tour is cheaper booked at the door than through a portal.
Wine plus an excursion, from about €45. Combinations like Cabo Girão, wine tasting and Serra d’Água, or wine tour with cable car and a typical lunch (from about €175, eight hours, private).
The September wine festivals — Blandy’s Wine Festival, the Grape and Farmer Festival, the live harvest at Estreito de Câmara de Lobos — are free and listed in our events calendar.
Cooking and baking
Pastel de nata class, from about €40–70, 1.5–2 hours. The island’s most-booked bad-weather activity. There are versions with unlimited wine and versions in working pastelarias.
Honey cake workshop (bolo de mel) — the Madeiran Christmas cake that gets baked all year round.
What you can do yourself
A great deal. The Mercado dos Lavradores costs nothing to enter; poncha is €4–6 in any bar; espetada on a bay skewer, bolo do caco with garlic butter and lapas are on every menu without a guide. And a glass of 10-year-old Malmsey in a wine bar costs less than half a tasting.
Booking earns its keep in two places: the structured tasting, because comparing wines side by side is hard to arrange alone — and the baking class, because you come away able to do something.
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Next: Funchal walking tours · Mercado dos Lavradores · Events
