Escorted Madeira Holidays and Guided Tours
Madeira sits about 600 miles southwest of Lisbon, closer to Africa than to mainland Europe, and it has no real winter. Volcanic soil, Atlantic humidity and a narrow temperature range mean plants from South America, South Africa and Australia grow side by side, often within sight of terraced vines and a 500-metre sea cliff.
Our Madeira holidays run eight days, with return flights and hold luggage, transfers at both ends and a base in Funchal. Excursion days are guided and the driving is done for you, which matters on an island where every road climbs. One tour concentrates on the gardens; another times itself to the wine harvest at Estreito.
Frequently Asked Questions About Our Madeira Tours
Enough to notice, but nothing severe. Excursion days are built around a coach with viewpoint stops, garden visits and time in villages, so you are typically on your feet in short spells of twenty minutes to an hour. Funchal's older streets are cobbled and sloping. Where a walk is more substantial, such as a levada or coastal path, it is set out in the day-by-day itinerary. Ask us about a specific departure if you would like the detail before booking.
Yes. All of our Madeira holidays include return flights with hold luggage, plus transfers in the UK and on the island, so you are met at Madeira airport and taken to the hotel. Flying time from the UK is around three and a half to four hours. Departure airports vary by tour and by date, so please ask us which airport your chosen departure flies from before you make other arrangements.
Funchal in January usually sits between 17 and 20 degrees by day, with sea temperatures in the high teens. It is shirt-sleeve weather in the sun and a jumper after dark, rather than beach weather. Showers pass through and the mountains often hold cloud, so pack a light waterproof and shoes with grip. Gardens, markets and restaurants stay open year-round; there is no closed season on the island.
The grape harvest on Madeira falls at the end of the summer, and the village celebrations at Estreito de Câmara de Lobos are timed to it, usually in late August or early September. Exact dates are set locally each year, which is why our wine festival tour is scheduled around them rather than the reverse. Ask us for the departure dates currently open and we will confirm what falls where.
Yes. Our Open Group departures are scheduled tours that individual travellers join, and single travellers are a regular part of the group. A single room carries a supplement: on the Gardens of Madeira tour it is £350. Solo travellers often find the guided excursion days and shared meals do most of the work of introductions. Ask us about current availability of single rooms on the date you have in mind.
It depends on the tour, so read the inclusions on each page. The Gardens of Madeira holiday includes breakfast daily and three lunches, with half board available as an option. The wine festival tour includes seven breakfasts and seven evening meals, with some drinks at dinner, and a three-course lunch with wine at Estreito. Special dietary requirements are usually arranged with the hotel in advance, so please tell us when you book.
Gardens grown on volcanic soil
Madeira has been called the floating garden of the Atlantic for well over a century, and the description is earned rather than invented. Frost is almost unknown at sea level, rainfall is generous on the higher slopes, and nineteenth-century British and Portuguese families with money and time filled their quintas with plants brought back from every continent.
The Monte Palace Tropical Garden, high above Funchal and reached by cable car from the old town, is the best-known of them: terraced paths, Portuguese tile panels set into the walls, koi ponds and a large collection of cycads and tree ferns. Elsewhere on the island you will see agapanthus lining the roadsides in June, jacaranda turning Funchal's avenues blue in late spring, and strelitzia sold by the armful in the market hall.
Our Gardens of Madeira tour gives a full day to island gardens as well as a morning at Monte, with English-speaking guides for each excursion.
Viewpoints, levadas and the north coast
The island is the top of a volcano, so the scenery arrives quickly. The skywalk at Cabo Girão puts a glass floor above one of the highest sea cliffs in Europe, with vine terraces visible almost 600 metres below. Pico dos Barcelos looks straight down over Funchal's rooftops and harbour, and the road inland to Curral das Freiras, the Valley of the Nuns, ends in a bowl of mountains where the village lives on chestnuts.
Then there are the levadas: irrigation channels cut from the sixteenth century onwards to carry water from the wet north to the dry, sunny south. Around 2,000 kilometres survive, and the flat maintenance paths beside them make some of the gentlest mountain walking anywhere.
North of the ridge the weather changes. Santana keeps its triangular thatched houses, cloud sits on the laurisilva forest, and the sea comes in hard at Porto da Cruz.
Madeira wine and the Estreito harvest
Madeira wine is fortified and then deliberately heated, a habit that began when barrels crossed the tropics as ballast and came back better than they left. Four noble grapes give the styles most people meet: Sercial and Verdelho on the dry side, Bual and Malmsey progressively sweeter. A bottle opened at Christmas will still be sound the following Christmas, which is part of its appeal.
Estreito de Câmara de Lobos, a village on the terraces above the fishing harbour where Churchill painted, holds its harvest festival at the end of the growing season. Grapes are trodden in public, folk groups play, and long skewers of espetada cook over embers on bay-laurel wood.
Our wine festival tour includes a three-course lunch at Estreito with wine and coffee, a wine tasting, entrance to the tropical garden and the skywalk at Cabo Girão. Bolo do caco, black scabbardfish and passion fruit turn up everywhere else.
How our Madeira holidays work
Each tour runs eight days and includes return flights with hold luggage, transfers in the UK and on the island, and seven nights in one hotel so you unpack once. The Gardens of Madeira tour stays at the 5-star Hotel Melia in Funchal, with breakfast and three lunches, all suggested excursions and transport included; half board can be added and the price is based on a group of 25 sharing, with a single supplement of £350.
Meals differ between tours, so check the individual tour page: the wine festival holiday includes seven breakfasts and seven evening meals, with some drinks at dinner.
Practicalities worth knowing. Funchal is built on a slope and much of the old town is cobbled. Coach roads are modern but steep, with long tunnels. Nothing is rushed, but a fair few excursions involve standing and gentle walking.
