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Visit Porto Santo
✨ Discovery3 days

Three days, three coasts

East: summits and Portela · North: Pico Branco and pools · West: Piano, Zimbralinho, Canavieira

At a glance

One coast a day. The east: Portela at daybreak, PS PR2, the Facho and the town. The north: the Pico Branco mule path, Cotrim, the Serra de Dentro clays, Fonte da Areia and the Salemas pools. The west: the Piano, the Zimbralinho cove, Morenos and the sun dropping into the ocean.

Difficulty
Moderate · one classified trail a day · coves on foot
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 · The east: Portela, summits and town9

📍 Portela → Moledo → Facho → Vila Baleira · ⏰ 06:30 · 🚗 ~30 min

  1. 07:00 → 07:30Photoby car · 8 min

    Daybreak at Miradouro da Portela

    At the eastern tip, just over 1.5 km from the centre: the palm avenue and the windmill, then the whole south coast below — Vila Baleira, the golden beach, the Porto de Abrigo, the marina and Ilhéu de Cima with its 1901 lighthouse, lit by the first sun.

    📍 Miradouro da Portela
  2. 07:30 → 07:50Photoon foot · 5 min

    The three Portela windmills

    Emblems of the island, restored and inaugurated on 14 October 2023 on their original site; Porto Santo's first windmill is said to date from 1794. With the basalt-paved lanes, fountains, wells and waterwheels, they tell of an island that made the most of the wind and of every drop of water.

    📍 Moinhos de Vento da Portela
  3. 08:15 → 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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
  7. 15:30 → 16:00Breakon foot · 3 min

    Lambecas ice cream

    More than fifty years of history and the archipelago's most iconic ice cream: passion fruit, banana, mango — the afternoon ritual, in the shade, at the hours when you avoid the sun.

    📍 Lambecas
  8. 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
  9. 19:30Mealon foot · 10 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.
Day 2 · The north: Pico Branco, Cotrim and Salemas7

📍 ER 120 → Terra Chã → Serra de Fora → Serra de Dentro → Fonte da Areia · ⏰ 07:00 · 🚗 ~45 min

  1. 08:00 → 09:30Visitby car · 15 min

    PS PR1 — Pico Branco and Terra Chã

    An old 2.7 km mule path (1:30 one way, back the same way, 184 to 450 m): cut into the Rocha Quebrada, it squeezes through the Cabeço do Caranguejo fissure and enters the cypresses planted in the early 20th century. At the fork, Terra Chã right, Pico Branco left.

    💡 Insider tip — Start on the regional road ER 111.

  2. 09:30 → 10:15Photo

    Terra Chã, the native flora

    End of the PR1, a Natura 2000 site: the spot on the island with the most well-preserved native flora, a stone house used as a base for reintroductions, "urzela" lichens on the rocks and, all around, Vila Baleira, Ilhéu de Cima and Pico Branco (450 m).

    📍 Miradouro Terra Chã
  3. 12:00 → 13:15Visitby car · 10 min

    Snorkelling at Porto dos Frades (Cotrim)

    East coast, Serra de Fora: a beach carved by sea and wind, sand and stones in very clear emerald water, often deserted. Old salt pans and a lime kiln to see; no facilities and no lifeguards.

    📍 Praia do Cotrim (Porto dos Frades)
  4. 13:45 → 14:15Visitby car · 10 min

    Serra de Dentro, the green clays

    In the north-east, a landscape of gullies in shades of green: "salão", clays formed by the alteration of undersea volcanic rocks and crossed by dark basaltic dykes — unique in Portugal, they once roofed the casas de salão. Geosite beside the road.

    📍 Serra de Dentro — argiles « salão »
  5. 15:00 → 15:45Visitby car · 10 min

    Fonte da Areia, the spring and the sandstones

    The island's historic spring (18th-century fountain) among pale sandstone cliffs carved by the wind: dune sandstones about 31,000 years old, four units separated by palaeosols, root casts and fossil snails. 25 m from the road; view over Ilhéu da Fonte da Areia and the north coast.

    📍 Fonte da Areia
  6. 15:45 → 17:30Visiton foot · 20 min

    Natural pools of Porto das Salemas

    At low tide the sea pulls back to reveal a multitude of turquoise pools, some sandy-bottomed, in a cove on the north coast. Access on foot only from Fonte da Areia: a track, then a steep path with loose stones.

    📍 Porto das Salemas
  7. 19:30Mealby car · 20 min

    Wood-fire espetada — Teodorico

    An institution of the island's interior: marinated beef skewers grilled over bay branches, generous portions — the dinner that rewards a day on the peaks.

🌧️ Rainy-day alternative — The IFCN asks you to give up the trails in heavy rain or strong wind: Casa Colombo, church and Centro Cultural, or a car loop of the island by the viewpoints.

🎒 What to bring — Closed shoes for the coastal paths, water, hat, sunscreen, mask and snorkel, a picnic.

  • 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.
  • Porto das Salemas: the natural pools only show at low tide — check the tide time before you go (link below). No lifeguards; keep away from the foot of the cliffs.
  • Closed shoes are a must for Zimbralinho and Porto das Salemas: steep paths with loose stones and no services on site.
  • Swimming: lifeguards are guaranteed only at Fontinha, Ribeiro Salgado and Cabeço da Ponta in season; elsewhere follow the flags, and never go into the water to rescue someone — call 112.
Day 3 · The west: Piano, Zimbralinho and Canavieira9

📍 Campo de Baixo → Zimbralinho → Morenos → Calheta · ⏰ 07:30 · 🚗 ~40 min

  1. 08:30 → 08:45Visitby car · 10 min

    Espírito Santo chapel

    Beside the regional road at Campo de Baixo: a 17th-century Mannerist chapel rebuilt in the early 19th, keeping 16th-century Flemish paintings of the Last Supper — a five-minute stop between the beach and the Piano.

    📍 Capela do Espírito Santo
  2. 09:00 → 09:30Visitby car · 5 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.

  3. 09:30 → 10:15Photoon 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
  4. 10:45 → 12:45Visitby car · 15 min

    Down to Zimbralinho cove

    From the Miradouro das Flores junction a road and then a steep path (930 m from the tarmac) drop to a pebble beach squeezed between cliffs: the island's finest pillow lavas and renowned snorkelling in calm seas. Sunny in the morning; in shade in the afternoon.

    📍 Zimbralinho

    💡 Insider tip — Look for the snail fossils in the rock on the way down.

  5. 13:00 → 13:45Mealby car · 10 min

    Picnic at Morenos

    Tables, straw shelters and barbecues amid typical vegetation at the western tip; the Morenos geosite shows volcanic dykes and dune sandstones with root casts some 30,000 years old.

    📍 Miradouro da Ponta da Canavieira
  6. 13:45 → 14:15Photo

    Ponta da Canavieira and Morenos

    The western tip facing Ilhéu de Ferro and its "Furna que Berra" that roars beneath the swell; on the way, the Morenos area — typical vegetation, tables and straw shelters — and its geosite of volcanic dykes and 30,000-year-old fossil roots.

    📍 Miradouro da Ponta da Canavieira
  7. 16:30 → 18:00Breakby car · 10 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)
  8. 18:45 → 19:45Photo

    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)
  9. 19:45Mealon foot · 2 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).

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

🎒 What to bring — Closed shoes for the coastal paths, water, hat, sunscreen, mask and snorkel, a picnic.

  • Closed shoes are a must for Zimbralinho and Porto das Salemas: steep paths with loose stones and no services on site.
  • 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.
  • Lapas (limpets): closed season 1 December – 31 March; minimum size 40 mm; no gathering by diving inside the marine reserve.

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