Cabo Girão

At the far end of the platform the floor turns to glass, and under it there is nothing until the sea, close to 580 metres down. This is the highest cliff skywalk in Europe, open since late October 2012 and glazed in the manner of the Grand Canyon Skywalk, so the drop sits under your feet. Look east and Câmara de Lobos is stacked along the shore. Look straight down and the fajãs, narrow shelves of cultivated ground at the base of the cliff, are still worked in strips. The escarpment itself runs for about three kilometres between the town and the Quinta Grande valley, and the cape reads differently from every angle along it.

• Crowds: up to 1800 people a day pass through one viewing platform; one visitor found it so packed that the visit became waiting for a turn at the edge.
• No water: nothing to fill a bottle from within 800 metres of the viewpoint, so bring your own.
• Toilets: paid ones about 180 metres from the platform, free ones roughly 500 metres away.
• Walkers: the cape is a common starting point for hikers, and a guidepost for the Vereda da Levada do Facho stands about 350 metres off.

Cabo Girão lies less than two kilometres west of the centre of Câmara de Lobos, on the boundary between that parish and Quinta Grande, so most people fit it in between other stops along the coast. Car or bus makes little difference to the last stretch: both leave you a couple of hundred metres from the turnstiles, and the rest is on foot. Communications masts share the headland with the lookout, and the cliff edge is closer to the entrance than first-time visitors expect.

Best: early in the morning or the later part of the afternoon — a visitor who came at the busiest hours recommends both over the middle of the day.

Avoid: midday, when every arrival converges on the same platform.

In the afternoon the sun sits behind the cape and lights the coast east towards Câmara de Lobos; in the morning you are shooting into it, but with fewer people at the glass.

Entry is through turnstiles, and staff at the barrier turn back anyone without a valid ticket, so keep yours to hand rather than dropping it at the machine. Cabo Girão is a protected area — a site of community importance in the Natura 2000 network, a little over 0.8 square kilometres of cape and cliff. The fajãs on the shelves below are working farmland, reached by the people who farm them. The site is kept noticeably clean; carry your rubbish back out with you.