Funchal Cable Car

The line runs 3,173 metres from the seafront up to Monte and gains 560 metres on the way. The ride takes about 15 minutes. Cabins hold seven people and reach the lower station roughly once a minute, so a queue moves faster than its length suggests. A glass-bottomed cabin is available for an extra fare. What you look down on is rooftops, terraced gardens and the slope falling away under the cable, with the bay behind. On a clear day the whole harbour is in frame. Monte at the top is green and heavily planted, and a second cable car crosses the gorge from there to the Botanical Gardens (Jardim Botânico).

• The queue has no shade. At busy times it runs around the building and down the road, and waits of over an hour happen.
• Plan the way down before you go up. The line stops in the late afternoon, and a meal or a garden visit at the top can outlast it.
• Cabins arrive about once a minute, so even a long queue keeps moving.
• Cloud can sit on Monte while the coast stays clear. Look up at the hillside before you buy; the view is what the ticket is for.

The lower station is in Almirante Reis Park, on the seafront avenue in central Funchal, by the Old Town. You board in the building itself, so there is no approach on foot beyond the door. Parking sits close by, some of it free and some paid, in car parks and on the street. The upper station opens straight into Monte, where the gardens, the restaurants and the toboggan basket run are all in the village.

Better: a clear day, and late in the day, when the queue is short.

Avoid: arriving with too little of the day left to ride back down.

The views are the whole point of the ticket, so the weather decides more than the hour does. Monte stands 560 metres above the seafront, and cloud often covers it while the coast below stays bright.