Madeira

by John Underwood and Pat Underwood

Published 31 December 1998
THE guide to Madeira for more than 30 years and a winner of the Thomas Cook Best Travel Guide Award, this book is by far the most heavily reviewed guide on Amazon, with 86 reviews for the previous edition. It guides the visitor across the island by car and on foot. But it is primarily known as a walking guide. The 'Sunday Times' said, 'A remarkable paperback which may have done more than any other to change the way its readers spend their holidays: this book single-handedly turned levada-walking into something approaching a craze.' Levadas are watercourses that carry rainfall from the mountains to irrigate the cultivated terraces, and they have totally captured the imagination of visitors to the island - whether walkers or not. Many people use the book just to picnic or stroll in the idyllic surroundings beside a levada. Still, the island is one of Europe's top destinations for mountain walks. With this in mind, we've concentrated in this updated 12th edition on re-walking all the high-level routes - especially important in view of last year's path collapse on the major traverse from Pico do Arieiro to Pico Ruivo.
In addition to the 'classics', about half of the 100 different routes in the guide have been rewalked. Naturally all the car tours have been checked as well - and the new edition warns you about major road closures. As usual, there are fairly significant changes to all the maps - including the addition of two new breathtaking mountain roads for keen motorists. And all of this revision was carried out only two months prior to publication of this new edition, so it is really up-to-date.