Thanks to Mari Lippig fir this lovely write up.
Saturday last, I went hiking with my Campismos da Madeira friends, and from the outset it felt like one of those days that knows it will matter. José and Edmar were there—our two Madeira leaders—quietly taking responsibility in the way that never calls attention to itself. They moved ahead at the narrow places, tested the footing where time and weather had softened the ground, making sure the old route was still passable before signalling us on, as if they had always been entrusted with the care of the path.
We took the public bus up from Funchal to the old station in Monte, where the day opens its lungs and the island seems to breathe back. I followed along as a foreigner does when welcomed into something intimate—careful, observant, deeply appreciative—aware that this was not simply a walk, but an inheritance being shared.
From there we began the climb along the line where the old Caminho de Ferro do Monte once hauled its determined loads. Not far along, José and Edmar paused beside the Toma de Água de abastecimento das locomotivas da antiga Companhia de Caminho de Ferro do Monte—a piece of infrastructure so modest it might be missed, and yet so essential that nothing moved without it. Here, water was drawn and stored to feed the engines, to turn steam into motion, and to make possible a journey that defied the steepness of the land.
It helped me then to picture how ordinary this route once was. In the early mornings, locals queued without fuss—market women with baskets braced against their hips, gardeners carrying tools polished smooth by use, shopkeepers heading down to Funchal with lists folded into their pockets. Children rode it too, feet dangling, lessons waiting at the other end. The wagons carried more than people: sacks of potatoes and onions, crates of flowers from Monte’s gardens, timber, bottles, parcels wrapped in paper and string. The train did not rush them. It climbed steadily, predictably, its timetable woven into the rhythms of the day—departures marking the start of work, arrivals signalling supper, prayer, rest.
As we walked on, José and Edmar pointed out where the train would have slowed, where effort became audible, where routine and resolve met without ceremony. When we reached Café do Parque, there at Largo da Fonte, they told us how the train once stopped here—coffee poured, legs stretched, water replenished, conversations paused and resumed—before the climb continued. It looks like any café now, modest and unassuming, yet it holds its history politely, as if still listening for footsteps on the platform.
Walking there, it was impossible not to feel the humility of scale. Whole lives once depended on this route: crates, produce, tools, men and women carrying the weight of ordinary days, all inching uphill on iron resolve. The steepness needs no symbolism to explain it—you feel it immediately in your calves and your breath. To move people and goods up this incline, day after day, with steam and water alone, was an achievement of patience as much as engineering. That it ever worked feels quietly miraculous.
The station still stands in its calm dignity, a sentence finished long ago yet perfectly legible. My phone, emptied by earlier vistas, refused to remember it for me. Perhaps that was fitting. Some places ask not to be captured but held—briefly, respectfully—and then released again, like the train itself, cresting the incline and slipping back into history.
Walking with friends who belong to this island, guided by those who care for its paths, I felt the rare privilege of being an appreciative guest—allowed, for a short while, to walk inside someone else’s everyday life, and its memory.”
