Madeira Gardens and Parks: Which Are Worth Paying For

Madeira has one of the gentlest climates in Europe, which means almost anything grows here, and for two centuries rich families, scientists and the city council have been planting gardens to prove it. The three big gardens above Funchal charge €10 to €18 and are worth it on a sunny day. The free city parks are smaller, shadier, and full of people who live here. Up in the mountains, the forest parks are not gardens at all but the start of the laurel woods.

In short

• Monte Palace (€18) is the big one: exotic, theatrical, steep. Allow two hours.
• The Botanical Garden (€10 for visitors) is the one for Madeira’s own plants, and the best view of the city from any garden.
• Palheiro (€11) is the quiet, English-style estate garden east of the city.
• The free parks in Funchal (the Municipal Garden, Santa Catarina, the Monte park) are small, shady and local.
• Prices are for September 2026. Check before you go.

The three paid gardens above Funchal

Monte Palace Madeira

The garden most visitors see, because the cable car from the old town drops you at its gate. Monte Palace is a steep hillside of paths, bridges and ponds full of large koi, with plants from Australia, South Africa, Asia and the Americas, a Japanese garden, and long panels of Portuguese tiles telling the history of the country. Under the garden there is a museum with a collection of minerals and precious stones, over 700 samples, and a collection of African sculpture. It is more a show than a botanical collection, and it does the show well.

Entry was €18 for adults in September 2026, and free for children up to 14 with an adult. The garden opens at 09:00 and closes at 19:00 from April to September and 18:00 from October to March, with last entry 45 minutes before; the museum closes at 17:30. Allow two to three hours. The paths are steep and the way back up is harder than the way down, so wear proper shoes. Mornings before the cruise groups and late afternoon are quietest.

Getting there: the Funchal to Monte cable car takes about 15 minutes (€16 one way, €22 return in 2026, from 08:45 to 17:45). A bus or taxi is cheaper. Driving up is possible, but the streets around Monte are narrow and parking is hard.

Jardim Botânico da Madeira

The scientific garden, on the hillside across the valley from Monte. It opened in 1960 on an old family estate and is laid out in sections: plants native to Madeira and the laurel forest, succulents and cacti, medicinal and aromatic plants, trees from around the world, and a lower garden of formal beds planted in patterns. There is a small bird park with parrots, and a natural history museum in the old house.

What sets it apart is the Madeiran plants, some of which grow nowhere else, and the view: from the upper terraces you see the whole of Funchal and the bay below. For visitors, entry was €10 for over-12s, €3 for ages 6 to 12, and free under 6 in September 2026. Since January 2026 it has been free for Madeira residents, so expect more local families at weekends. Allow an hour and a half.

A second cable car runs from Largo das Babosas in Monte across the valley to the Botanical Garden, from 09:00 with the last car at 16:50, so you can do both gardens in one day without the car. Otherwise, buses run from the city centre.

Palheiro Gardens

The oldest garden of the three, and the most peaceful. Palheiro, east of Funchal on the way to Camacha, is part of a 19th-century estate that has belonged to the Blandy family, the wine shippers, for generations. It feels English: long lawns, camellias, a sunken garden, a rose garden, and a stream from the mountain running through a grotto into ornamental pools. A tea house, open 10:00 to 17:00, looks out over the bay.

Entry was €11 for adults, €6 for ages 15 to 17 and free for younger children in September 2026, and the gardens open daily from 09:00 to 17:00 (last entry 16:00). It is further out than the others and not on the cable car, so you need a car, taxi or bus. That is also why it is never crowded.

Which paid garden to choose

Free parks in Funchal

These are city parks, not showpieces. They are where you sit in the shade with a coffee between museums.

Jardim Municipal

On Avenida Arriaga, next to the Baltazar Dias theatre, the city’s main garden fills the plot where the Franciscan friars had their convent until the 19th century. Look at the name plates on the trunks: many of the big trees came from other continents. There is a pond with ducks on it, a small open-air amphitheatre and a kiosk café under the trees. It is a stop on our Doors of Funchal walking tour, which tells the story of the convent that stood here.

Parque de Santa Catarina

Walk west along the seafront and climb the slope above the cruise terminal, and you are in the city’s biggest central park. Santa Catarina is lawns, flower beds and benches all pointed at the harbour, so this is where to sit and watch a ship leave. Christopher Columbus, who married into a Porto Santo family, has a statue here, and there is a café and a duck pond.

Quinta Magnólia

A 19th-century estate garden west of the centre, a little off the visitor map, with big trees, shaded paths, a playground and a fitness trail. It is now run as a cultural centre by the regional culture office, which lists weekday opening (10:00 to 12:30 and 13:30 to 17:00) and a small ticket (€3 for adults in 2026), so check whether that applies to the gardens before you go.

Parque Municipal do Monte

Between the cable car station and the steps up to Monte church, the Monte park is a short cool walk down a wooded ravine, with an old bandstand and a carved stone map of the island set into a pond. It costs nothing, so if Monte Palace is too dear or too steep, this gives you the shade and the ferns for free.

Parque Ecológico do Funchal

On the road up to Pico do Areeiro, the Ecological Park covers a big slice of the mountain above Funchal that grazing and fires had stripped bare. The city has spent decades replanting it with native trees. There are forest tracks and picnic spots, and it costs nothing. If you are driving up to Areeiro anyway, stop on the way down.

Quinta Vigia

Next door to Santa Catarina, Quinta Vigia has been the official residence of the president of the regional government since 1984. Its gardens of palms, parrots and bay views are open on weekdays only, with a paid ticket; the house itself is a separate visit.

Outside Funchal

Quinta do Santo da Serra

Fifteen minutes from the airport, at Santo António da Serra, the old Blandy family country house has become the east’s favourite picnic ground. Families come at weekends for the long lawns under old trees, the mini-golf and the tennis courts, and children come for the animals: peacocks, fallow deer and the small garrano horses. Walk to the viewpoint at the far end of the park, which looks down over Machico to the São Lourenço peninsula and, on a clear day, Porto Santo. Entry costs €3 for anyone over 12, paid online on SIMplifica like a trail licence; children 12 and under go free.

Quinta do Arco rose garden

In Arco de São Jorge on the north coast, a rose garden of well over a thousand varieties, old and rare ones among them, planted on a slope above the sea. It is part of a Pestana hotel now and opens from April to December, 10:00 to 18:00. Check the entry price when you go. It is a stop on our Wild North Coast road tour.

Forest parks in the mountains

These are not gardens: they are clearings in the laurel forest, the ancient woodland that once covered southern Europe and now survives mainly here and in the Canaries. They have picnic tables, toilets and the start of a trail.

• Queimadas, above Santana: a thatched forestry house in the traditional Santana style, a pond, and big trees. It is the start of the Caldeirão Verde levada and of the level Queimadas path, built so that wheelchair users can enter the forest too. Parking costs €2 an hour after a free first half hour, up to €10 a day, and the car park fills early.
• Chão dos Louros, near Encumeada: picnic tables, fireplaces and running water under laurel trees, and a short loop walk, the Vereda do Chão dos Louros, that brings you back to your car.
• Fanal, in the north-west: an open plateau of old, twisted til trees, usually in fog, with a forestry house and a car park. You can wander for half an hour or walk the Vereda do Fanal.
• Ribeiro Frio: a trout farm, a small forest park and the start of the flat Balcões walk to a viewpoint over the central peaks.

Trails leaving these parks need the €4.50 trail licence (2026); wandering around the park itself does not.

Tips

• Spring is peak season. Gardens are at their best from March to May, around the Flower Festival. Jacarandas turn Funchal’s streets purple in April and May.
• Monte is cooler. It is about 550 m above the city and often in cloud when the seafront is sunny. Bring a layer.
• Combine by hillside. Monte Palace, the Monte park and the Botanical Garden fit into one day. Palheiro fits with Camacha, or with Santo da Serra and the east.
• Rain changes things. The paths at Monte Palace get slippery. The free city parks are fine in a shower.

Our Doors of Funchal walking tour passes through the Municipal Garden and tells you what you are looking at, stop by stop, in your ear.