Product Description

Fancy a sun filled walking adventure? The Cicerone - Walking in Madeira Guide will take you there! A walking guide to Madeira and Porto Santo, volcanic islands which bask in sunny solitude in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The 60 day routes explore the dramatic cliff coastline, wander along level levada paths, penetrate dense laurisilva forests and traverse stone-paved paths from peak to peak in the high mountains. Ideal for the following seasons - all year round; hot and humid but not excessively so; slight risk of snow in winter

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #294658 in Books
• Brand: Cicerone
• Published on: 2002-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
'What an eye-opener this book turned out to be! Madeira is a holiday destination that is usually associated with an older clientele but Paddy Dillon opens up the country with fifty mountain, coastal and lavada walks that should appeal to all ages: levadas being old watercourses.' (Outdoor Pursuits December 2002)

About the Author
Paddy Dillon is a prolific outdoor writer with over thirty guidebooks to his name, as well as more than a dozen booklets and brochures. He writes for outdoor magazines and other publications, as well as for tourism organisations. Paddy lives near the Lake District and has walked in every county in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales; writing about walks in every one of them. Paddy enjoys simple day walks, challenging long-distance walks, and is a dedicated island-hopper. He has led guided walks and walked extensively in Europe, as well as in Nepal, Tibet, Africa and the Rocky Mountains of Canada and the USA. While researching routes, Paddy works directly onto a palmtop computer, so that his descriptions are precise, having been written at the very point at which the reader uses them. Paddy takes his own photographs, has appeared on radio and TV, and is a member of the Outdoor Writers' Guild.

Customer Reviews

OK but not great
Has some interesting routes but the descriptions and maps are not up to the standard of others in this series.

Good, but a couple of things to be aware of...
This book is really good. It gives an "idiots guide" to the levada walks, including some limited (but helpful) commentary on the plant life, architecture etc. The grading are helpful and the maps at least provide an overview of the routes.

Two pieces of advice, however:

1) The Madeiran/Portuguese government are currently renovating the levadas (2009-2010). For example, in August 2009, we turned up to the the Levada Nova route in this book only to find a 6km stretch of it is closed until Feb 2010 for repair. Based on this, I would always check with the Madeiran authorities what is open and what is not.

2) The book is good, but it's no substitute for a proper OS map. Inevitably, there are diversions due to maintenance work. The route descriptions in the book only work if you follow them perfectly, and the maps aren't detailed enough to be able to track your diversion and re-join the main route later. The book takes the hard work out of map reading, but I'd always still take a map just in case!

All together, worth having and definitely enhances the experience of our walks, though,