✨ Discovery2 days

A balanced weekend: summits and beaches

PS PR2 + Facho · town · Piano · bike · Flores · wines · sunsets

At a glance

Day one gains height and comes back down to the town's history and its beach. Day two goes west: the São Pedro chapel and the Piano columns, the cycle path to Calheta, the Miradouro das Flores and the island's wines before sunset.

Difficulty: Moderate · one hike on day one · flat cycling on day two
Best season: Bathing season 1 May – 31 October; water around 18 °C in March, 24–25 °C in high summer.

🎒 Packing list

Walking shoes
Water, 1.5 L per person per outing
Windbreaker and hat
Sunscreen
SIMplifica trail booking (€4.50)
Swimsuit for the evening swim

Day by day

Day 1 · Summits, Columbus and the beach8

📍 Moledo → Facho → Vila Baleira → Fontinha · ⏰ 07:00 · 🚗 ~25 min

08:00 → 10:15Visitby car · 10 min
PS PR2 — Vereda do Pico do Castelo
The island's forest trail, graded easy, from Moledo: 3.2 km round the north of Pico do Facho (1:30) or 4.6 km round the south (2:15), under Aleppo pines and dragon trees, up to the 16th-century fort and its cannons. Early, before the heat, on a booked slot.
💡 Insider tip — The forest gives shade, but carry water.
10:15 → 11:45Photoon foot · 50 min
Pico do Facho, the roof of the island
No road reaches the highest point: you climb on foot along the unmarked vereda that starts at Pico do Castelo. Here burned the "fachos" that warned of pirate ships; the whole island, the beach and the islets lie below.
📍 Pico do Facho
💡 Insider tip — A windy summit: windbreaker even in fine weather.
13:00 → 14:30Mealby car · 20 min
Bolo do caco & espetada — O Forno
The town-centre bolo do caco specialist: Porto Santo's version, taller and wider and without sweet potato, baked on basalt stone and served with an espetada.
14:30 → 15:30Visiton foot · 5 min
Casa Colombo — museum
The house where, by oral tradition, Columbus lived after marrying Filipa Moniz: early-16th-century Gothic windows, a museum opened in 1989 and redesigned in 2004, treasure from the Slot ter Hooge wrecked in 1724. Open weekday mornings and afternoons, closed Mondays.
📍 Casa Museu Cristóvão Colombo
15:30 → 16:00Visiton foot · 2 min
Nossa Senhora da Piedade church
The mother church, on the site of the island's first chapel: built between 1430 and 1446, pillaged by French corsairs in 1566, rebuilt in 1667; the Gothic Morgada chapel, a rocaille ceiling and paintings by Conrado and Römer. Its patron is celebrated on the last weekend of August.
📍 Igreja Nossa Senhora da Piedade
16:30 → 18:00Breakon foot · 5 min
Late afternoon at Fontinha
Back on the town beach as the sun drops: showers, lockers and a first-aid post at hand, guaranteed surveillance in season. Everything is on foot from the centre.
📍 Praia da Fontinha
18:30 → 19:15Photoon foot · 15 min
Evening at Miradouro das Lombas
Very close to the centre, a small lookout over Vila Baleira as far as the old pier, the bay and the beach, with an old wooden windmill as a landmark and a nearby restaurant of regional dishes — the evening viewpoint without a car.
📍 Miradouro das Lombas
20:00Mealon foot · 15 min
Grandmother's cooking — Casa d'Avó
Recipes handed down through the generations: açorda, seafood rice, passion-fruit flan. Simple and sincere, a step from the beach — dinner from 6.30 pm.

🌧️ Rainy-day alternative — Casa Colombo (museum), Nossa Senhora da Piedade church, then cinema or an exhibition at the Centro Cultural e de Congressos.

🎒 What to bring — Walking shoes, 1.5 L of water per person, snacks, hat, sunscreen, windbreaker — the peaks are windy even in fine weather.

PS PR trails: since 1 January 2026 you book a 30-minute slot on SIMplifica — €4.50, free for residents and children up to 12. Yellow-and-red waymarks.
Water: at least 1.5 L per person — there are no fountains on the trails, and the IFCN asks you to carry spare water and food.
Casa Colombo: open weekdays 10–12.30 and 2–5.30 pm, Sunday 10 am–1 pm, closed Mondays and holidays — check before you go.
Sun: the National Maritime Authority advises avoiding the sun between 11 am and 4 pm and drinking regularly — hence beach time early and late in the day.

🔗 Book a trail slot (SIMplifica)

Day 2 · The west: Piano, bike, Flores and wines9

📍 Campo de Baixo → Ribeiro Cochino → Calheta → Flores · ⏰ 08:00 · 🚗 ~20 min

08:45 → 09:15Visitby car · 10 min
São Pedro chapel and its caravel
On the slopes of Pico de Ana Ferreira at Campo de Baixo: Baroque and Mannerist, gilded altarpiece, painted vault, a holy-water font decorated with shells and, on the pebble forecourt, a caravel for the patron of sailors. A footpath leaves from here to the Piano columns.
📍 Capela de São Pedro
💡 Insider tip — 29 June: procession from Ribeiro Salgado beach, then the fish auction.
09:15 → 10:00Photoon foot · 25 min
The "Piano" of Pico de Ana Ferreira
Light-grey prismatic columns of lava, born of the contraction of magma cooling slowly inside a volcanic conduit and exposed by a former quarry: geosite, geological heritage of regional value. Best seen from the Miradouro da Pedreira, 144 m from the road.
📍 Pico de Ana Ferreira
10:45 → 11:15Mealby car · 10 min
Bolo do caco & fruit — Ribeiro Cochino stalls
In summer the stalls in the Ribeiro Cochino car parks sell bolo do caco, grapes, watermelon and figs: the beach snack before the cycle path that starts here.
📍 Praia do Porto Santo
11:15 → 11:45Visitby bike · 2 min
Cycle path Ribeiro Cochino → Calheta
4,565 m of red resin, almost flat, beside the ER 111, opened in 2004, beach on one side and dunes on the other — Cabeço da Ponta, then Calheta at the end. City, mountain or electric bikes hired in town.
📍 Praia do Porto Santo
12:30 → 14:00Mealby bike · 10 min
Grilled lapas at Calheta
The restaurant on Praia da Calheta is known for grilled lapas served with garlic-butter bolo do caco, facing Ilhéu da Cal and its lime galleries.
📍 Praia da Calheta (Porto Santo)
💡 Insider tip — Lapas outside the closed season (1 Dec – 31 Mar).
15:30 → 17:00Breakon foot · 2 min
Calheta, rocks and Ilhéu da Cal
The end of the 9 km, quieter than the centre: sand and rocks, and across the water the lime galleries cut into Ilhéu da Cal. Changing rooms and toilets on site; no guaranteed lifeguards, so swim with care.
📍 Praia da Calheta (Porto Santo)
17:30 → 18:00Photoby bike · 15 min
Miradouro das Flores, the 9 km at a glance
South-west coast, past the Centro Hípico: the whole beach, Ilhéu de Baixo, Ilhéu de Ferro and Ilhéu de Cima and, weather permitting, the Desertas and Madeira; the contrast of golden sand and turquoise is strongest in the late afternoon. Bust of the painter Francisco Maya.
📍 Miradouro das Flores
18:15 → 19:15Mealby bike · 10 min
Island wines — Adega das Levadas
Home cooking and Porto Santo wines: Listrão, the "queen of the white grapes", and Caracol, grown on calcareous sand behind croché dry-stone walls — a tasting before the nearby Calheta sunset.
💡 Insider tip — Late August: Festa das Vindimas, public press and tastings in the town centre.
19:15 → 20:00Photoby bike · 5 min
Sunset at Calheta
For the tourist board, THE Porto Santo photo: the sun drops behind Ilhéu da Cal (179 m) and, on clear days, Madeira's outline shows on the horizon. Terminus of the SIGA "Centro – Calheta" bus.
📍 Praia da Calheta (Porto Santo)

🌧️ Rainy-day alternative — A tub sand bath at the Hotel Porto Santo geomedicine centre (medical advice), then Casa Colombo.

🎒 What to bring — Parasol or hat, sunscreen, water, towel, mask and snorkel; cash for the stalls.

ER 111 cycle path: 4,565 m of red resin, almost flat, from Ribeiro Cochino to Praia da Calheta; city, mountain and electric bikes for hire in town.
Cash: the bolo do caco and fruit stalls in the Ribeiro Cochino car parks don't always take cards.
For the tourist board, the one photo to bring home is the Calheta sunset: arrive half an hour early, with Ilhéu da Cal in silhouette across the water.
Lapas (limpets): closed season 1 December – 31 March; minimum size 40 mm; no gathering by diving inside the marine reserve.

🔗 SIGA bus timetables

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