Funchal Audio Tours

Funchal sits inside a natural bowl of hills that rise from the harbor to 1,200 meters, a city arranged like an audience facing the sea. The Portuguese arrived in the 1420s and named the settlement for the fennel ('funcho') that covered the valley floor. The Cathedral of Funchal was completed in 1514, making it one of the oldest still-functioning cathedrals built by Europeans in the Atlantic world. By the 16th century, Madeira wine was famous enough that Venetian navigators were writing home about it.

The city enjoys the warmest annual average temperature of any city in Portugal, around 20 degrees Celsius, which means the volcanic gardens terraced up the hillsides stay green year-round.

Winston Churchill came here to paint. George Bernard Shaw learned to dance the tango in Funchal in 1924. The cable car from the harbor district of Zona Velha up to Monte offers views that justify the entire journey, and from Monte you can take the famous wicker-basketed toboggan sleds back down the hillside, a tradition dating to the 19th century.