Madeira: The Finest Valley and Mountain Walks

I purchased this along with Madeira Tour & Trail Map (8th Edition)for a recent trip to Madeira. We used 6 routes from the guide in various combinations and found it to be accurate and informative of the route especially as some of the routes are not overly signposted (a little common sense was required). Whilst the route numbers in the guide dont tie up with the route numbers on the map we used (there is an alternative companion guide to this) the routes are easy to find and follow. My only small criticism of this guide is that it could do with some information on the total elevation gain on a route note just the small diagram showing really just the gross elevation change.

A good guided pep book which includes good descriptions of walks and includes some circular walks which are rare in Madeira.

Very impressed, especially with the topographical diagram of each walk which shows the elevation against the length of time into the walk, so enabling part of a walk to be undertaken without experiencing severe gradients, a truly valuable feature. I am not a mountain goat, and for me walking the levadas means basically level walking.The alternative walk to 25 Fontes through the Calheta tunnel can be recommended as it avoids the pointless and less interesting climb up/down past the Rabacal forestry house, still not what I would call an easy walk but worth the effort.

Good guide

I'm mostly using my gps now to navigate on hiking trails, but it was our first holiday in Madeira and I appreciated the amount of photographs and good descriptions this book offered. It helped me greatly to decide which levadas to take when all you have is one week. The parking information was most useful. The was used and "abused", but it's still great!.

A fairly good book, but quite slow in mentioning any tunnels that are part of the walk. As a claustrophobic, I can't do tunnels that are long and/or cramped. So to get partway through a walk's description to find instructions about entering a 200m tunnel is pretty disappointing. Ruined for me! Mention them at the start, please.

Good overviews of distance, height and time for all walks. Descriptions were easy enough to follow and reliable.

We used this book extensively during our holiday. Great source of information prior to setting out.