Rabaçal is located at the top of mountain ridge. It offers wonderful views, especially if they are enhanced with sparse clouds below. It was very windy when we arrived, but "hiking area" we were interested in is down in the valley at the other side and it is calm there. When we returned back in the evening, wind was still present and it was even colder.

Have you noticed those 2 people on the left? They are waling along levada.

... this one.

And we will be walking somewhere down there - at the opposite side.

Do you see that road in the middle? Well, if we walked all the way, instead of taking shuttle bus, we would need to go to the far right side of photo, then all the way to the left and beyond. Well spent 5€. Look! Bus is coming!

Hike to Risco waterfalls

Whole hike is very easy. After short route down the hill you find out levada and then walk all the way at the same level (I mean, of course it is going up slightly, because water in levada is rushing in other direction, but it is not noticeable).

Starting point of all hikes here. These buildings are not toilets, even they look so. For toilet you have to go to the right, down the stairs and there you are.

Most of the time you walk along this levada, without having many possibilities to look around the counrty.

Then it opens up and offers such a view. When we finish this trip, our next destination is somewhere behind that mountain.

Waterfalls were tall, but not very strong. Summer thing again...

There were many tourists resting and eating. We also met unbelievable number of tourists on our way there. Ehm, why was that unbelievable? We have seen how many cars and buses were parked at the top.

People were feeding birds here, so I had good opportunity to take and retake photos until I was satisfied. But, why on earth did they give them banana?

We needed to return nearly to the beginning of this hike to change our route to subsequent hike to 25 Fontes. Again, it was nice walk while we were backtracking, but then we needed to go down the slope to find another levada.

Hike to 25 Fontes

What started as easy and wide levada changed after crossing creek to get to other side of valley. This part of levada is different and I think much nicer. It goes along steep hill, many times it is narrow, with rocky wall on the right and abyss on the left. It is narrow in way it is inconvenient when you meet people going in other direction. But it is so beautiful! I really like that reflection of blue sky in the water and curves on levada.

Crossing the stream, small pool below the bridge.

Looking back.

Enjoying view when trees open up.

Stairs. We are going uphill. We must be close.

25 Fontes

The name of this place means 25 Springs.

I can say this place have really surprised me. Photo I have seen did not do justice to this beautiful place. But it was challenging to take good photo of. Too much dynamic range. I am not doing as many HDRs these days as I used to, but this place asked for it. It is pity I changed to manual focusing and forgot to switch back. I have ruined a few subsequent photos.

I would like to see this place when it is full of water as this photo suggests - based on round rocks.

We wanted to finish wonderful experience of these hikes by visiting Encumeada on our way back home. Our baedeker said it is the right road from Funchal to Rabaçal, because it offers very nice views of moutains. But it was closed for some reason. We were lucky we did not try this road in the morning, but came through Calheta. That would be a big turn off and who knows, we might have even changed our minds and skipped this place completely. And that would be a thing to regret. It was one of 2 best days in Madeira.