Thanks to Mari Lippig for this write up of a recent walk on the island.
If you would like to join any of the walks orgainised by José Gonçalves, and take place every 2 weeks, click the image below to go to the Facebook Page. There you have all the details and the upcoming walks.
There comes a time in life when beauty begins to feel urgent.
When we are young, we assume the world will wait patiently for us. The mountains will remain, the rivers will keep flowing, and the flowers will bloom again next year. But as the years gather behind us, something changes. Beauty begins to feel like a gift that must be noticed and remembered.
That is why I write things down. Not because I fear forgetting, but because the moments deserve witnesses.
Last week our cheerful band of walkers — Grupo Caminhadas Campismo Madeira — set off along the Levada do Castelejo, one of the quieter levadas on Madeira’s north side. The morning began the way many Madeiran adventures do: with coffee, laughter, and someone asking, “Did everyone bring their rain jackets?” even though the sky was perfectly blue.
The levada slips through the landscape like a silver ribbon. These irrigation channels, first built in the 16th century, carried water from the rainy northern mountains to the thirsty fields of the south. Carved by hand into volcanic rock, sometimes by workers hanging from ropes, they remain one of Madeira’s quiet engineering marvels.
Everything seems to glow with life. Ferns spill over the banks, moss softens every stone, and dew drops drp gently from the branches above.
Across the steep hillsides appear the terraces — those perfectly carved drills in the earth that Madeiran farmers have shaped over centuries. From above they look like careful handwriting across the mountains, each row planted with vegetables, vines, or sugarcane. It is farming as sculpture, terrace patiently built from stone and soil.
Wild herbs grow along the paths and walls — fennel, wild mint, oregano, and tiny thyme — releasing their scent whenever a boot brushes past. The air itself seems seasoned.
At certain bends the view stretches suddenly outward toward Porta da Cruz far below. The village rests between the mountains and the sea, its fields and houses gathered like a small painting against the Atlantic.
We stood there together, our little walking group leaning against the stone wall of the levada, looking out at the terraces, the ocean, and the quiet order of the fields.
Someone finally said what we were all thinking.
“How lucky we are.”