From: Funchal
The Valley of the Nuns is a rugged valley north of funchal in the center of the island. It is surrounded by the highest peaks anywhere on madeira.
To start the day, I took a bus out of Funchal into the valley. I wasn’t entirely sure what was there, so just planned to go to the village at the center of the valley.
While looking at a map on the bus, I noticed it stopped at a viewpoint before heading down to the valley, so that seemed like the better place to get off.
The view was pretty incredible. The cliff at the top was a sheer vertical drop. From up there I noticed something very strange on top of one of the mountains across the valley. You can notice it in the top left of the image above. It looked like a giant temple at the peak.
A thought crossed my mind.. I should probably go up there and see what that is.
Instead of taking a bus down to the valley, there is a long path of steep stairs that goes straight to it.
The village at the bottom was peaceful. Got an ice cream cone. But the ominous peak was still in view, poking through the clouds.
It was decided, I was going up.
I found that a trail does exist, and headed for it. I wasn’t sure what would be up there.
The first two thirds up was pretty nice hiking. Beautiful views and waterfalls. That sort of thing.
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Then came the trail that split off to go to the summit. It got much more intense very quickly.
The trail needed to get up the side of a tall rock cliff, so it hugged the side of it.
Above the treeline now, the final scramble to the summit was very ominous, because there was recently a forest fire at the top. It looked like something out of mordor.
The most challenging part of the climb was the rock formation I thought looked like a temple before. Completely exposed at the very top, it’s a tricky climb up some steep cliffs. It felt like a proper summit on top of that thing.
By this point the clouds had rolled in. But you could see other peaks among them, like islands in the ocean.
The way down was long, and after running out of water I was very happy to find a small shop at the bottom with some cold beer (and a cute dog).
Valley Dog
I luckily just made the last bus to Funchal out of the valley, the hike took just a bit longer than plan. I also had no idea when the last bus was, the schedules on madeira are pretty hard to figure out.