Funchal Cathedral

From the street this is a low white building with stonework corners, easy to walk past. The interior does the work. The roof is cedar, cut to a Mudéjar-inspired design, and it is the thing to look up at first. The choir stalls carry prophets, saints and apostles in 16th-century dress, with Madeiran detail worked into the seats and armrests. The silver includes a processional cross given by King Manuel I, counted among the masterpieces of Manueline liturgical silverwork. The walls themselves are volcanic rock, thousands of blocks brought from the cliffs at Cabo Girão. Finished structurally in 1514, the cathedral is one of the few buildings on Madeira to survive almost intact from the first decades of settlement.

• Scale: the cathedral is smaller than its status suggests. The interest is in the ceiling, the stalls and the silver, not in the size.
• No toilets inside. Public toilets sit about 30 metres away; a second set roughly 170 metres off charges for entry.
• Closing is enforced: the lights go off and the building is cleared at the closing hour. Do not leave the visit to the last minutes.
• Beggars gather in front of the entrance.
• Walk round the back. The rear of the building is worth the loop and is easy to miss.

The cathedral stands in the old centre of Funchal, so the last stretch is on foot whatever you arrive in. The nearest bus stop, GNR, is about 130 metres away. There is no parking at the cathedral itself: the closest spaces are in the surrounding streets, around 35 metres from the entrance, with a second area about 60 metres out. Drinking water and public toilets are both within 30 metres of the building.

Better: a weekday, when the cathedral stays open from early morning through to the evening without a break.

Avoid: arriving just before closing, and the midday gap at weekends.

Staff clear the building at the closing hour and switch the lights off, so a late arrival turns into a rushed one. On Saturday and Sunday the doors shut at noon and open again in the afternoon, which catches people who plan the old town in one sweep.

Funchal Cathedral is a working church and the seat of the Diocese of Funchal, not a monument with a ticket desk. Services are held during visiting hours, from early morning onwards. When Mass is under way, keep to the aisles and keep quiet; the nave is in use. The building has been listed as a National Monument since 1910.