Machico lies in a valley on the southeast coast of Madeira, the island's easternmost municipality and its second largest city, with around 20,000 residents. Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira landed here on 1 July 1419; the town became the archipelago's first captaincy in 1440 and grew wealthy on sugar. The economy now runs on agriculture, fishing and tourism, the harbour mixes a fishing port with moored yachts and a lit promenade, and walking tracks climb into the mountains behind.
Machico
- 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
Shoulder
Apr – May
Mild rather than hot. Machico runs slightly cooler than Funchal in every season, and the town's warm stretch has not started yet.
High season
Jun – Sep
Stable, warm summers with rare heatwaves and night-time lows above 20 °C. The food festival in the first week of August fills the town with traditional Madeiran dishes and music, and the clubs stay open all night.
Shoulder
Oct – Nov
October is warmer than June in daily mean temperature — the seasonal lag pushes Machico's warmest weather past the end of summer.
Low season
Dec – Mar
Winter stays very mild and the gap between seasons is small, though Machico sits a little cooler than Funchal throughout.
How long to stay
A day covers the town: the beach, the harbour with its lit promenade, and the old core spread across both banks of the ravine. Two or three days suit anyone using Machico as a base rather than a stop, since the municipality stretches east to Caniçal and the Ponta de São Lourenço headland, north over the ridge to Porto da Cruz and inland to Santo António da Serra. Walkers stay longer — the mountain tracks are the reason to.
Getting around
Most arrivals come through Cristiano Ronaldo Madeira International Airport, in the neighbouring municipality of Santa Cruz, about 30 minutes by road from Funchal. Machico itself lies 17 km northeast of the regional capital, on the road that carries on to Ribeira Seca, Caniçal and Santana, so a hire car reaches the rest of the municipality without a detour: Caniçal and the eastern cliffs, Porto da Cruz on the north coast, Santo António da Serra inland.
Taxis are yellow. Ask for the meter to be switched on, and expect a 20% surcharge after 20:00. The valley floor is the gentle part of an otherwise steep municipality — Pico do Facho rises east of the town, the Queimada plateau west — and the pedestrian tracks into the mountains begin at its edges. Continente Modelo is the supermarket to stock up at before a walk.
What to see
Destinations in Machico
Frequently asked questions
Why does Machico matter in Madeira's history?
João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira came ashore on the beach here on 1 July 1419, at the start of the Portuguese discoveries, and a thanksgiving Mass was said on the sand. In 1440 Henry the Navigator granted Tristão Vaz the Captaincy of Machico, the first in the archipelago, and in 1451 the settlement was elevated to town alongside Funchal. The first sugar sold on Madeira was sold here.Where does the name Machico come from?
The most repeated explanation, and a disputed one, ties it to the legend of the English lovers Robert Machim and Anne d'Arfet, shipwrecked and buried on the island before the Portuguese arrived; the first explorers found two crosses they attributed to the pair, and the name reads as a corruption of the surname Machin. Other hypotheses exist.What are the Furnas do Cavalum?
A group of four lava tubes in Machico, named after a local legend about a demon called Cavalum imprisoned in the cave. They open a window on the volcanic history of the island and hold at least fourteen invertebrate species, three of them endemic to Madeira and one found nowhere else. Locals used the caves as a refuge, including during the Madeira Revolt of April 1931.What should you eat in Machico?
The traditional dishes on local menus are sopa de trigo, a wheat soup; carne de vinho e alhos, meat marinated in wine and garlic; and bolo de caco, a flatbread baked on a hot stone and usually served warm as a starter with garlic butter. The food festival in the first week of August puts the whole range in one place.