Two Men in White, a Wicker Basket, and 170 Years of Sliding Downhill
Halfway up the hills above Funchal, in the square outside a whitewashed church, a queue forms every morning beside a row of wicker baskets mounted on wooden runners. Two men in white cotton trousers, white shirts and straw boaters stand behind each one, ropes coiled in their hands. This is the Monte toboggan, or carro de cesto, and it has been carrying passengers down this hillside since 1850 — not as a novelty invented for tourists, but as a genuine 19th-century way of getting people and goods off a mountain with no road worth the name.
It is one of the most photographed things in Madeira, and one of the most misunderstood. Visitors regularly arrive expecting a scenic ride back into central Funchal, only to be decanted at a suburban roundabout with no obvious way onward. This guide covers what the toboggan is, what the couple of minutes on it actually feel like, what it costs, and — the piece almost every other write-up leaves out — exactly what happens once the basket stops moving.
Where the Idea Came From
Monte sits roughly 600 metres above Funchal, cooler and greener than the coast, and from the mid-19th century it became the place wealthier Funchal families kept a second house for the summer. The problem was getting up and down. Long before any cable car or reliable motor road, residents and visitors needed a way to descend the steep, cobbled lanes without a full day’s walk or a bone-jarring cart ride.
The solution, formalised around 1850, was disarmingly simple: a basket-work sledge on greased wooden runners, guided by two men who ran, walked and occasionally rode on the back rails, using ropes and their own boots to steer and brake. It worked well enough on Monte’s cobbled calçada streets that it outlasted the reason it was invented. Cars eventually made the descent easy for everyone else; the toboggan carried on anyway, shifting from transport to spectacle somewhere in the 20th century, and the carreiros who run it today are the direct descendants — professionally and sometimes literally — of the men who started the job.
What Actually Happens on the Ride
The run starts on the small square beside the Monte church and covers about 2 km down to Livramento, on a public road shared with ordinary traffic. Two carreiros — always two, one on each side of the basket — push it off, then run alongside or hop onto the back runners, using ropes looped around the frame to lean the basket into corners and their rubber-soled boots dragged against the tarmac as the brake. There is no engine, no track and no seatbelt. Speed varies with the gradient and the crew, but the whole descent takes only a few minutes.
Two people fit in a basket, sitting close together on a padded bench with a low wicker wall around them. It is loud in a good way — wheels aren’t involved, so what you hear is wooden runners on stone, the carreiros’ footsteps, and the road itself. On tight bends the whole thing tilts, which is the point, and also why it is not a ride for anyone who startles easily or has back or neck problems. Photographs taken by a resident photographer along the route are usually offered as a paid extra once you arrive at the bottom; buying them is entirely optional.
Booking in advance is not necessary or really possible — you simply join the queue at the top, pay at the small booth, and wait your turn, which on a quiet morning can be a few minutes and on a cruise-ship afternoon considerably longer.
The Piece Nearly Every Guide Gets Wrong
This is worth stating plainly, because it trips up a large number of first-time visitors: the toboggan does not go back to Funchal. It stops at Livramento, a residential district roughly halfway down the hillside from Monte, not in the old town, the marina or anywhere near the city centre. Livramento is a real neighbourhood with a main road running through it, not a purpose-built terminus, and there is no direct onward toboggan, escalator or moving walkway from there.
To finish the journey into Funchal you have two practical options. A taxi from Livramento into the centre is quick — typically well under fifteen minutes — and drivers are used to picking up toboggan riders, though it is worth agreeing the fare or confirming the meter is running before you set off. Alternatively, Horários do Funchal buses run along the main road through Livramento and connect back to the city, which is cheaper but slower and less predictable, especially with luggage or children in tow. What does not exist is a free or included shuttle back to where you started: budget for a taxi or a bus fare as part of the toboggan’s real cost, not an afterthought.
The upshot for planning: treat the toboggan as a one-way descent from Monte to Livramento, then a separate short hop from Livramento into Funchal — never as a loop back to where your day began.
Monte Itself: Church, Emperor’s Tomb and Gardens
Because almost nobody rides the toboggan without first being at Monte, it is worth spending time on what is around that starting square before the basket ever moves.
The church of Nossa Senhora do Monte dominates the top of a long flight of steps and is Monte’s spiritual centre — locals still climb those steps on their knees on the feast day in August. Inside, in a side chapel, lies the tomb of Charles I of Austria, the last Emperor of Austria-Hungary, who spent his final months in exile on Madeira after the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy and died at Monte in 1922, still in his thirties. It is an unexpectedly grand piece of European history to find beside a toboggan queue, and worth the few minutes it takes to see.
A short walk from the church, the Monte Palace Tropical Garden is one of the two big gardens people conflate on Madeira — the other being the Madeira Botanical Garden on the opposite side of the valley, which is a separate site entirely, not an extension of this one.
Monte Palace’s grounds run over a former private estate and mix koi ponds, azulejo tile panels and a mineral collection with genuinely dense subtropical planting; it easily fills an hour on its own, and pairs naturally with a morning at the church and the toboggan. For a fuller comparison of the two gardens before deciding which — or both — to visit, see our guide to Monte Palace versus the Botanical Garden.
Getting to Monte in the First Place
Most visitors reach Monte by the Funchal cable car, which climbs from the old town up to Monte in around 15 minutes, rising roughly 560 metres over rooftops, terraces and forest. It is the classic pairing: cable car up, wander the church and gardens, toboggan down to Livramento, taxi or bus the rest of the way. The cable car itself, its running times and its own ticket prices are covered in detail on our Funchal destination guide and in the dedicated guide to the cable car and toboggan together — this page focuses on the toboggan and Monte, not the mechanics of the cable car ride up.
Driving up is also possible, on a narrow, switchbacking road, though parking near the church square is limited and best avoided in the middle of the day when tour buses and cruise groups are heaviest. A taxi from central Funchal is a straightforward alternative if you would rather do the toboggan first and take the cable car down for the view, riding it in reverse of the usual order.
Costs and Comparisons
| Element | Typical cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Cable car, one way up | around €13–16 per person | Funchal old town to Monte, roughly 15 minutes |
| Toboggan, shared basket | around €25–30 for two | Per basket, not per person; solo riders pay more each |
| Optional souvenir photo | a few euros extra | Taken by resident photographers along the route |
| Taxi, Livramento to Funchal | a short, low fare | Usually well under fifteen minutes |
| Bus, Livramento to Funchal | a standard single fare | Slower, more waiting, cheapest option |
Treat a full toboggan outing — cable car up, church and gardens, toboggan down, taxi back — as somewhere in the region of €35–70 per person once everything is added together, more if you buy the photographs or add a guided tour on top. It is not a budget activity by Madeiran standards, and most people do it once as a specific, deliberate experience rather than folding it casually into a longer walking day.
When to Go and How to Avoid the Crowds
Monte gets busiest from late morning once cruise-ship excursions and organised day tours arrive in bulk, and the toboggan queue lengthens accordingly. Arriving on the first cable cars of the day, or reaching Monte independently by taxi before mid-morning, cuts the wait significantly and gives the church and gardens a quieter feel too. Weather matters less here than it does for the levadas or the high peaks — Monte’s elevation is modest enough that it rarely sees the fog and cold that can close in higher up — but a dry morning still makes for better photographs on the descent than a wet one, since the carreiros’ braking depends on grip.
Making a Day of It
Because Monte and the toboggan take up only a couple of hours, most visitors build them into a wider morning or afternoon around Funchal rather than a standalone trip. A guided loop through the city and its hillside districts is a straightforward way to add context without arranging transport yourself — a 4x4 tour that threads through Funchal’s steep back streets and viewpoints, Monte included covers ground that would otherwise mean several separate taxis.
For a longer day that folds in Monte alongside Funchal’s harbour, old town and a sweep over the city from above, a full-day tour taking in Funchal’s rooftops and a sunrise vantage point above the clouds is worth a look if an early start suits you.
If your appetite runs more towards greenery than architecture, the toboggan and gardens pair oddly well with a proper levada walk later the same day or the next morning — a guided walk into the Queimadas forest and its levada network is one of the more accessible options and a useful contrast to Monte’s manicured grounds. None of these tours run the toboggan itself, which is bought on the spot at Monte rather than pre-booked — they simply make the rest of a Monte day easier to plan around.
For a full itinerary that places Monte correctly within a single Funchal day, see our Funchal in one day guide or the broader one day in Madeira itinerary. If you are weighing up the cable car and taxi options in more depth, our piece on taking a taxi or the cable car to Monte covers the trade-offs from a first-hand angle, and an honest review of the wicker toboggan is worth reading if you want a less polished account before deciding whether it is for you.
For the wider set of viewpoints worth combining with Monte, our guide to Madeira’s best viewpoints and miradouros is a useful companion, and if you are travelling with children, our notes on Madeira with kids flag which parts of a Monte visit work best for younger ones. Anyone assembling a first Madeira trip more broadly should also glance at our roundup of common Madeira travel mistakes to avoid, where the “toboggan takes you home” assumption features more than once.
Monte Toboggan: Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Monte toboggan and where does it actually take you?
It is a wicker basket on wooden runners, pushed and steered downhill by two carreiros in white cotton and straw boaters, running since 1850. It covers about 2 km from Monte to Livramento in a few minutes and stops there — it is not a way back into central Funchal, so you need a taxi or bus for the rest of the way down.
Does the toboggan take you all the way back down to Funchal?
No. The run ends at Livramento, roughly halfway down the hillside, not in the city centre. From there you need a taxi (a short, fixed-feeling fare) or one of the Horários do Funchal buses that pass through Livramento to reach the marina or the old town.
How much does the Monte toboggan cost?
Budget roughly €25–30 for a basket shared by two people, paid in cash or by card at the small booth by the church square. Solo riders pay more per head, and the carreiros’ souvenir photographs are an optional extra on top.
Is the Monte toboggan safe?
It has operated since 1850 with an experienced two-man crew on every basket, and serious incidents are rare. That said, it runs on an open public road, riders sit with no seatbelt or harness, and the carreiros brake with their rubber-soled boots against the asphalt, so it is not something to do with a baby on your lap or a bad back.
How do I get up to Monte in the first place?
The Funchal cable car is the classic approach, climbing from the old town to Monte in about 15 minutes over rooftops and terraced hillside. A taxi up the winding road works too, and is worth considering if you would rather ride the toboggan first and the cable car down. Full details on that leg are on our Funchal cable car guide.
Can I skip the toboggan and still enjoy Monte?
Yes. Monte’s church, the Monte Palace Tropical Garden and the cable car views are worthwhile on their own, and plenty of visitors treat the toboggan as optional rather than essential. It is the single most photographed thing to do here, but it is a short, pricey add-on, not the reason to come up.
Is the Monte toboggan worth it with children?
Most families find it fine for children old enough to sit still and hold on, roughly five and up, but it is not built with child seats or restraints, and toddlers on a lap are not a good match for the speed on the steeper bends.
What is the connection between the toboggan and Winston Churchill or the Portuguese royal family?
None directly — that mix-up belongs to Câmara Lobos, further along the coast, where Churchill painted. Monte’s own royal connection is Emperor Charles I of Austria, who died in exile here in 1922 and is buried in the church the toboggan starts beside.
