Top 10 Madeira (Eyewitness Top 10 Travel Guides)

Madeira’s Top 10
30
Curral das Freiras
The easiest way to get a feel for the sublime grandeur of Madeira’s mountainous
interior is to visit Curral das Freiras (“Nuns’ Refuge”), the hidden valley used as a
hideaway by the nuns of Santa Clara Convent (see pp16–17) whenever pirates
attacked the island. (The same name is also given to the little village that now
nestles there.) From such a beautiful spot, they must have returned to their city
convent with a heavy heart. Visiting in 1825, H N Coleridge (the nephew of the
English poet) described the Curral as “one of the great sights of the world”.
Nuns Valley Café,
Curral das Freiras
At the Nuns Valley
Café, coffee is served
on a terrace with
spectacular views.
Many tour companies
in Funchal offer halfday
trips to Curral
das Freiras, often in
combination with
Monte (see p26) or
Câmara de Lobos
(see p75). Most of
these trips go only
as far as Eira do
Serrado, the
viewing point above
the village.
Curral das Freiras is
on the route of Autocarros
da Camacha
bus 81.
• Map G4
Top 10 Features
1 Eira do Serrado
2 Miradouro
3 The Sublime
4 View to the East
5 View to the North
6 View to the West
7 Footpath
8 Road
9 Chestnut Woods
0 Village
! Eira do Serrado
Admiring this vista from
Eira do Serrado (right) is as
much a part of a visit to
Curral das Freiras as the
descent into the village
itself. There is a hotel and
restaurant, so if you fall in
love with the romantic
view, you can stay for lunch
or dinner, or even spend
the night (see p116).
@ Miradouro
From the car park in
front of the hotel, a short
footpath leads up to a miradouro,
or viewing point
(below), high above the
Socorridos Valley. From
here, the village far below
looks like “Shangri-La” –
the utopia of James Hilton’s
novel Lost Horizon (1933).
£ The Sublime
To cater to the 18thand
early 19th-century taste
for the “sublime” in art,
painters of the time visiting
Madeira would deliberately
exaggerate the height of
mountains and waterfalls.
$ View to the East
Because of its cauldronlike
shape, early explorers
thought the Curral
das Freiras, with its
dramatic cliffs rising
sheer to the east,
was a collapsed volcano.
In fact, the circular
form is purely
the result of millions
of years of river and
rain erosion.