The north, where the island shows off

From May to September the north coast is not too rainy to stay — it gets long settled spells and the green is at its best; you simply plan around the odd shower. From October to April it is a genuine gamble: the trade winds push cloud onto this coast, and you can lose a day to sideways rain while Ponta do Sol sits in sunshine forty minutes away. The honest pattern: sleep north in summer without hesitation, and in winter treat it as a spectacular day trip from a southern base.

About fifty minutes by car along the VE1 via Faial, and the drive itself is a reason to come — the road runs under some of the highest sea cliffs in Europe. The airport is roughly forty minutes from Santana, so arriving travellers can head straight north without touching Funchal. Quinta do Furão sits ten minutes beyond the town, on the cliff above the vineyards. Buses exist but are slow and infrequent; the north assumes a car.

The Porto Moniz lava pools sit at the far north-western tip of the island, about eighty minutes from Funchal and forty-five from São Vicente. The natural pools — black lava enclosing clear Atlantic water — are the north coast’s headline attraction and get busy from late morning in summer; go before ten or after five. There is a paid managed complex and a free wilder set beside it. From Casa del Mar in Ponta Delgada or the Casa do Lanço estate in São Vicente, you are twenty to thirty minutes away.

Yes — it is the north distilled into one village: a black-sand beach that vanishes at high tide, natural sea pools, vineyards on impossible slopes and the Véu da Noiva waterfall viewpoint just east. The water off the black sand is some of the clearest swimming on Madeira. It makes an easy base-adjacent stop: fifteen minutes from the Casa do Lanço houses and ten from Porto Moniz. Summer afternoons get busy with tour vans; mornings belong to locals and the odd surfer.

For a week or more, yes — it is the way to do Madeira properly. The standard insider pattern is four or five nights south or in Funchal plus two or three on the north coast, which saves you the back-and-forth driving and gives you the north’s best hours: early morning and evening, when the day-trippers are gone and the light comes in low over the cliffs. Quinta do Furão and the São Vicente villas both reward exactly those hours.