Madeira Levada Hikes

Useful Resources for the Levada hike in Calheta

HERE is a pretty good website that gives a great summary of the whole of the Levada Nove De Calhetha hike.

Similarly, this AI overview HERE of hikes around the Calheta region is also useful.

The A-Z of Madeira is also a good resource, but be warned that the description of how to get to the start  of the hike in Prazares is poor!

Levada Nova de Calheta-Prazeres

We stayed at the Calheta Beach Hotel, which is roughly an 11 minute drive to Prazeres. Having read the above guides, it seemed logical to start in Prazeres and end in Calheta.

Firstly to dispel some myths about this walk! Although the above guides rate this as easy (probably because it’s flat) it is definitely not to be attempted if you suffer from vertigo or are not confident in your footing! Some of the paths are very narrow and crumbling with no guide ropes, and have a vertical drop straight down to the valley floor 100s of metres below. For that reason I would not recommend taking children who might not appreciate the danger.

Where to start the hike from!

Some of the guides give directions starting from Prazeres which might suggest to the reader Prazeres is the highest point and the hike follows the levada ‘down’ to Calheta - fair enough as Calheta is a coastal town. However, the point given as being ‘Calheta’ is actually around 200 metres higher up than Pazeres and is very much inland and know where near the coast. This becomes more obvious when you see the water flows downhill from Calheta to Prazeras!

The Start. For me this was Prazeres but as outlined above you could easily switch the route around.

Getting There: Damn got the taxi to this address (Caminho Lombo da Rocha 97a, 9370-612 Prazeres) which was completely the wrong side of Prazeres. Gave myself a 5k (45 minute) walk pissing about trying to find the start!

A good local landmark to aim for which is only 10 minute walk from the start is the local church: The Igreja Matriz dos Prazeres R. da Igreja 3, 9370-626 Prazeres.

On route you come to a beautiful and inspiring villa that has an amazing water feature in its front garden that appears to be part of the Levada. I think the villa is called ‘Casa de Abrigo do Atalinho’. At this point you are quite near a main road ER222 (direction sign at the villa saying Moinhos, which appears to be a very small village) so in theory could exit the walk here if you wanted to.

The hike took me around 3hrs including a lunch stop and many other stops to take photos and short videos. I’m not an experienced hiker so allowed 4 to 4hrs30 as per some of the guides I’d read.

The End: Despite its name, the hike does not end ‘in’ Calheta! It’s just that the end point crosses a main road that runs down into Calheta. The end point is on the ER211; the nearest landmark is a very large sign awarding some kind of EU 2020 award of maybe funding. 

After the above sign post, there is the Calheta Green bar restaurant which is around 200 metres away downhill. If you’re ending your hike here then it’s advisable to have a taxi booked or leave your hire car near this point.