The Fanal Forest – once I saw photos, it held a sort of mythical draw to me.
Located high in the mountains along the Paul da Serra Plateau, it is a 40 minute drive from Ponta do Sol.
We had read that it was best to try and visit the forest on a foggy day, as that added to the mysterious quality of the forest but fog is hard to forecast so we set off on a cloudy morning, hoping for the best. Once we reached the forest, the weather was clearer than it had been in Ponta do Sol and there was no fog but we enjoyed our wandering.
The Fanal Forest is unique in that it is one of only three places left on Earth home to a Laurel forest, also called a laurisilva or laurissilva forest, a type of subtropical forest found in areas with high humidity and relatively stable, mild temperatures, such as the highlands of Madeira. Millions of years ago, laurel forests were common in Europe and Northern Africa. Nowadays, all Laurel Forests have disappeared due to climate changes and you can only experience these special forests in Madeira, the Azores and the Canary Islands.
As one of the last existing forests of its kind, the Fanal Forest is part of the UNESCO World Heritage List.
It’s a crazy forest – filled with ancient twisted trees, with gnarly branches covered in thick layers of moss and lichen, many over 500 years old. Each tree is a small self-contained eco-system with a personality.
When I was researching hikes in Madeira, this hike always came up as a must do but for a very different reasons from our other hiking. It’s more of a wander around in a vast ethereal, forested area which is like a living museum. I would definitely say we just wandered our way through.
However, I had seen a photo of a tree, which resembled a person with a crazy hat on, reaching out with a twisted arm forward, and showed Yim what I wanted to find, so as we began the hike, we were both of the lookout. Ten minutes into our hike, she found it. It really did live up to exactly what I had hoped – the perfect Witch Tree, standing guard over this gnarly old forest.
But she isn’t the only attraction here. All of the trees here are otherworldly and because of the twisted branches, it seemed to me as if the trees would be dancing wildly if you visited on a moonlit night and they didn’t know anyone was watching.
Kind of a Fangorn Forest vibe. Trees that could be awake or half-awake, or could be fully sentient but look much like trees. In other words – a forest of Ents đŸ™‚
As far as the hike, there’s no real structure to this walk. Yes, there are trails that run through the area, but we visited for a walk in the woods. However, if you plant to visit, the area could be un-officially divided into 3 parts:
The Lower Forest, with clusters of trees which are quite spread out from each other in a way that on a clear day doesn’t make you feel like you’re actually in a forest. There’s space between the trees.
The Hilltop Forest, which is denser with old picturesque trees, while also offering a panoramic view of mountains and the ocean below. I enjoyed hiking up the hill. It had a lot more trees, and they were closer together, which made it feel more like a forest.
And the Fanal pond, where the cows were hanging out, which we didn’t visit. I grew up with cows. They don’t interest me.
A Second Visit
We tried a second time to experience the mystical fog and that turned out to be quite the day.
Prior to leaving Collingwood, we had purchased new rain gear and on the morning we started back to Fanal, it was raining in Ponto do Sol. When we arrived at the forest, it was pouring, hard, and high winds were whipping across the meadow.
We snuck out of the car and into the shelter, where there was a couple who had slept in their camper overnight, making a stew on the oven pit in the shelter house and another young couple, who were hopelessly underdressed for the weather. The camping couple had on proper rain gear and were still soaked, but the other young girl had on a pair of cotton capris and she was wetter than a sponge under a tap.
I looked over at Yim and said, “Let’s do this!” and off we went, holding onto each other in case we got blown over. Streams of water were running across the fields and even our waterproof shoes couldn’t keep the water out, as we were tip toeing around three inch deep puddles, often unsuccessfully.
We found The Witch Tree and made another attempt at getting the fog in the photo but we were simply getting too wet to stay for long and we snapped a couple of photos and laughed all the way back to the shelter. Yim commented that she had never even considered going outside in that type of weather and that the day was indeed a first in her life. Always nice to experience something for the first time on vacation.
How to Get to Fanal Forest
Fanal Forest is located on the northwest side of Madeira, along the plateau of PaĂºl da Serra and between the Seixal and Ribeira da Janela mountains. The easiest way to reach the forest is by car, following the ER209 road. The drive itself is can be beautiful, depending on weather. It if is rainy, like it was for the two visits we made to the forest specifically, then visibility can be very poor and the road can feel quite narrow when an oncoming car approaches. On parts of ER209, the ditches are clearly 6 – 10 feet below the asphalt and there is no shoulder. It is straight drop and I found this distracting or, put another way, it increased my focus exponentially. I was hyper aware of where we were on the road during that stretch.
That said, the parking lot is quite large, easy to find and on the edge of the forest. Enjoy.
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