Câmara de Lobos is a town and municipality on the southern coast of Madeira, bordering Funchal to the east and functioning as a suburb of the capital. Zarco's men landed here in 1419 and named the bay after the seal colony they found sheltering in it. Fishing and agriculture still carry the local economy alongside tourism — bananas, other island fruit and the vineyards that supply Madeira wine. The municipality holds five parishes and runs from the harbour up to Curral das Freiras in the mountains, with the 580-metre cliffs of Cabo Girão marking its western boundary.
Câmara de Lobos
- Currency
- Euro, in place of the escudo since 2002. Multibanco and ATM Express cash machines take international cards almost everywhere and mostly charge nothing of their own, while the Euronet machines clustered in tourist streets take high fees and give poor rates. VAT is already inside every price in shops and restaurants: 23% standard on the mainland, 22% in Madeira and 18% in the Azores.
- Language
- Portuguese, spoken here with a heavy accent even by mainland standards. English gets you about as far as it does on the mainland, and an attempt at a few Portuguese words is always taken well.
- Power plug
- Type C / F, 230 V, 50 Hz
- Visa
- Schengen: entry and short-stay limits follow the common Schengen rules.
- Time zone
- UTC+0 (UTC+1 in summer)
- Tap water
- Safe to drink across the country. Bottled spring water (água mineral) is sold everywhere for those who prefer it.
- Tipping
- Not expected, appreciated for good service. Around 8–10% in a restaurant if the service was exemplary, and it is perfectly acceptable to leave nothing if it was not. No tip for a coffee or a cake; €1–2 if you eat a full meal in a café. Nothing in pubs and bars. In a taxi, round the fare up and add €1–2.
- Emergency
- 112
When to go
High season
Jun – Sep
Warmest and busiest along the south coast; the harbour square and the bars around it stay full into the evening.
Shoulder
Oct – Nov
Wetter weather arrives, though the south side of the island stays drier than the north; the mountain roads up to Curral das Freiras run into low cloud.
Low season
Dec – Feb
Mild and quiet, with the turn of the year as the exception — the whole coast towards Funchal fills up for it.
Shoulder
Mar – May
Clear light over the bay and the terraces green again above the town, with fewer people on the harbour front than in summer.
How long to stay
Half a day covers the harbour, the boats on the slipway and the streets behind them, which is why most visitors treat the town as a trip out from Funchal and sleep in the capital. Two or three days is the honest figure for the whole municipality, once you add the upland parishes, Curral das Freiras in its ring of mountains and Cabo Girão on the western edge. Staying in the town itself gives you the bay early and late, when the day trips are elsewhere.
Getting around
Most people come from Funchal, which the municipality borders to the east. The south-coast expressway runs past the town and on west to Ribeira Brava, and buses work the same corridor from Funchal. Down at the bay the lanes are narrow and the town is walked rather than driven.
A hire car earns its keep for the rest of the municipality, because Câmara de Lobos is more than its harbour: Estreito de Câmara de Lobos, Jardim da Serra and Quinta Grande sit on the slopes above, Curral das Freiras lies deep inland among the peaks, and Cabo Girão stands on the western boundary. All of it is reached by mountain roads that climb in hairpins off the coast.
What to see
Destinations in Câmara de Lobos
Frequently asked questions
Where is Câmara de Lobos?
On the southern coast of Madeira, immediately west of Funchal and inside the capital's metropolitan zone. It is the second largest settlement on the island by population, with about 32,000 people in a municipality of 52 square kilometres.What does the name mean?
"Chamber of the sea wolves". João Gonçalves Zarco landed here in 1419 and found a large colony of monk seals — lobos-marinhos in Portuguese — in the sheltered bay. The seals are gone from here; the surviving island colony lives on the Desertas Islands.Is Cabo Girão part of Câmara de Lobos?
Yes. The cliffs form the western limit of the municipality, towards Ribeira Brava, and rise 580 metres — among the highest sea cliffs in Europe.What is the town known for?
Fishing and farming, six centuries of both. Bananas and other island fruit grow on the terraces, and the vineyards above the town feed the Madeira wine trade. The bars around the harbour are the home ground of poncha, and Winston Churchill set up an easel above the bay to paint it.Can it be visited from Funchal?
That is how most people see it. The municipality borders Funchal directly, the south-coast expressway links the two, and buses run the same route.