{"id":690,"date":"2026-08-17T12:23:52","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T11:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whatsonmadeira.info\/cabo-girao-and-viewpoints\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T12:23:52","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T11:23:52","slug":"cabo-girao-and-viewpoints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatsonmadeira.info\/en\/cabo-girao-and-viewpoints\/","title":{"rendered":"Cabo Gir\u00e3o, cable cars and viewpoints"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Cabo Gir\u00e3o<\/h2>\n<p>At 580 metres one of Europe&#8217;s highest sea cliffs, with a <strong>glass-floored skywalk<\/strong> cantilevered over the edge. You look straight down onto the <em>faj\u00e3s<\/em> \u2014 the narrow cultivated terraces at the foot of the wall \u2014 and out to sea.<\/p>\n<p>The skywalk charges a small admission (a few euros), parking is free, and it is 20 minutes by car from Funchal. It is on practically every west and island tour, which makes it the most densely visited point on Madeira: <strong>before 10 am or after 5 pm<\/strong> it is a different place.<\/p>\n<h2>Cable cars<\/h2>\n<p>Madeira has more than one, and the famous one is not the interesting one.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Funchal \u2013 Monte<\/strong>: the touristic one, 15 minutes, about \u20ac12.50 one way.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Monte \u2013 Botanical Garden<\/strong>: the connecting line.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Faj\u00e3 dos Padres<\/strong>: straight down the cliff to a cove with a restaurant and orchards otherwise reachable only by boat.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Achadas da Cruz<\/strong> (west): a working cable car down to terraced fields by the sea, spectacularly steep and almost tourist-free.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>13 options<\/strong> combine cable cars with tours, from about \u20ac75.<\/p>\n<h2>The miradouros you drive to yourself<\/h2>\n<p>All free, all reachable by car:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Eira do Serrado<\/strong> \u2014 into the Nuns&#8217; Valley, Curral das Freiras<\/li>\n<li><strong>Guindaste<\/strong> and <strong>Faial<\/strong> \u2014 glass walkways on the north coast<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ponta do Garajau<\/strong> with its Christ statue<\/li>\n<li><strong>V\u00e9u da Noiva<\/strong> near Seixal \u2014 the waterfall from the viewing platform<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ponta do Pargo<\/strong> \u2014 lighthouse in the far west<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pico dos Barcelos<\/strong> \u2014 the quickest view over Funchal<\/li>\n<li><strong>Balc\u00f5es<\/strong> at Ribeiro Frio \u2014 20 minutes on foot, looking into the central massif<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Book it or drive it yourself?<\/h2>\n<p>This is the island&#8217;s clearest case: <strong>drive yourself<\/strong>. Not one viewpoint here needs a guide, nearly all have parking, and the driving between them is precisely what a week on Madeira is.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Booking<\/strong> makes sense if you have no <a href=\"\/en\/car-hire-and-getting-there\/\">hire car<\/a> \u2014 then <a href=\"\/en\/island-tours-day-trips\/\">island tours<\/a> and <a href=\"\/en\/jeep-4wd-tours\/\">jeep tours<\/a> are how you get there.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udc49 <a class=\"wom-aff wom-aff--getyourguide\" href=\"https:\/\/www.getyourguide.com\/en-gb\/madeira-l67\/viewing-points-tc238\/\" rel=\"sponsored nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">See viewpoint tours on GetYourGuide<\/a> <small class=\"wom-aff__flag\">(Affiliate link)<\/small><\/p>\n<p>Next: <a href=\"\/en\/island-tours-day-trips\/\">Island tours and day trips<\/a> \u00b7 <a href=\"\/en\/jeep-4wd-tours\/\">Jeep and 4WD tours<\/a> \u00b7 <a href=\"\/en\/madeira-south\/\">South Madeira<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>345 tours include at least one viewpoint \u2014 on Madeira that is not a category, it is the default. This page sorts out what charges admission, what is free, and where booking makes any sense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":67,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nature-views"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonmadeira.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonmadeira.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonmadeira.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonmadeira.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonmadeira.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonmadeira.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonmadeira.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonmadeira.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonmadeira.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}