Madeira Botanical Garden

Cable Car Only Fares

If you only want the ride over the valley and back, these are the fares. The return can be broken at either end, so you can ride down to the garden, walk it, and ride back to Monte later the same day. A one-way trip takes about 9 minutes.

A non-stop return is about 18 minutes.

Combined Cable Car And Garden Entry

The combined ticket adds entry to the Madeira Botanical Garden itself. For an adult the round trip with entry costs $27.50 (€24), against $18.34 (€16) for the ride alone, so the garden portion is effectively $9.16 (€8). The garden's own standalone entry is $11.46 (€10), so the bundle saves a little if you plan to ride both ways and enter the garden.

Hours, Discounts And Validity

The cable car runs 09:00-17:00 daily, with last boarding at 16:50. The only closed day all year is 25 December. Tickets are valid for 12 months from purchase, unusually generous for a hillside cable car, and buying online earns a 10% discount, a policy this operator applies because it competes for the same Monte crowd as the free-standing Funchal-Monte line up the hill.

The Monte end station is at Largo das Babosas, in the terrace bar there. The main station sits at the garden itself, at Caminho das Voltas 15, Funchal, where you also find a panoramic restaurant, a snack bar, a shop and free parking. There is a further ticket office on Avenida do Mar in central Funchal.

All fares, hours and facilities above come from the operator's own site at telefericojardimbotanico.com, which publishes no walking time between the garden's cable car station and the garden's main building, so treat any such figure elsewhere as an estimate, not an official one.

Two Operators, One Hillside

The Madeira Botanical Garden is reached by the Teleférico do Jardim Botânico, a company that has nothing to do with the Funchal cable car that climbs from the Old Town up to Monte. That better-known line is run by Madeira Cable Car, charges $25.21 (€22) return for adults, takes about 18 minutes and runs 08:45-17:45. The botanical garden line charges $18.34 (€16) return, takes about 9 minutes and runs 09:00-17:00.

Different company, different fares, different hours, different route.

Why People Confuse Them

Both lines meet at Monte, and specifically around Largo das Babosas. The Funchal-Monte line's upper station is at Largo das Babosas 8. The botanical garden line's Monte station is also at Largo das Babosas, in the terrace bar.

You step off one cabin and the other terminal is a short walk away, so it is easy to assume it is the same operation. It is not. A return ticket on one line does not cover the other, and there is no through fare published between the two companies.

What This Means For Your Day

Plan the two rides as two purchases. A common routing is to ride the Funchal-Monte line up in the morning, see Monte, then buy a ticket on the botanical garden line to cross the valley, visit the garden, and return the same way. If you ride down to the garden, you cannot continue from there to central Funchal by cable car.

Your ways back are the same cabin to Monte, a bus, or a taxi. See the directions section below for the road options.

Three Ways To Do It

The garden sits across the valley from Monte, and Monte Palace Tropical Garden sits at Monte itself, which makes a two-garden day possible but full. Match the routing to the time you actually have.

Working Backwards From Closing Time

The cable car boards last at 16:50 and closes at 17:00, every day except 25 December. If you are combining both gardens, count backwards from that. Monte Palace opens at 09:00 and its last garden entry is 17:00, so the shared closing window is around 17:00 for the garden line.

Arriving at the botanical garden after mid-afternoon leaves enough time for a solid visit but not a slow one.

The Garden Itself

This is a plant-focused botanical collection laid out on terraced slopes, reached either by its own cable car, by bus, or by car with free parking at the main station. The viewpoint positions over Funchal and the harbour are part of the draw, and the ride over from Monte gives you the same valley from the air. The tour listing for the garden describes it as spanning a vast 80,000 square metres, which is the only area figure in our sources.

What We Can Confirm And What We Cannot

Our verified sources cover the cable car, the prices, the station facilities and the garden's own entry price of $11.46 (€10). They do not name the specific plant collections, list species counts, or describe individual themed sections of this garden. Rather than invent detail, we will say plainly: a published collection-by-collection breakdown is not stated in the material we verified.

If specific plant families or display houses matter to your visit, check the operator's own site before you go, or treat the garden as a botanical collection with strong viewpoints and let the planting be the surprise.

Facilities At The Main Station

The main station at Caminho das Voltas 15 has a panoramic restaurant, a snack bar, a shop and free parking, built into the terminal itself rather than added later, since IFCN and the garden's cable-car operator planned the station as a destination in its own right, not just a drop-off point. The Monte end has a terrace bar at Largo das Babosas, useful if you are waiting out a queue for the Funchal-Monte line next door. There is also a ticket office on Avenida do Mar in central Funchal if you want to buy before you travel up.

The practical upshot: you can eat, shop and buy tickets at either end of the ride, so a rushed connection is rarely necessary.

The Short Version

The Madeira Botanical Garden is this page. It is a plant-focused garden across the valley from Monte, reached by its own cable car run by Teleférico do Jardim Botânico, or by bus or car. Monte Palace Tropical Garden is a different garden and museum at Monte itself, next to the top of the Funchal-Monte cable car, charging a single adult entry of $20.63 (€18) that includes a three-floor museum and a Moscatel tasting.

Where The Mix-Up Happens

Both are botanical gardens on the same hillside above Funchal, both appear in cable car searches, and the garden line and Monte Palace both show up when you look for things to do at Monte. They are a valley apart on foot. If you bought a ticket for one, it does not get you into the other, and no combined ticket between the two attractions is published in our sources.

By Bus

Horários do Funchal buses 29, 30, 31 and 31A run to the Botanical Garden directly. Bus 22 instead serves Babosas, which puts you on the Monte side at Largo das Babosas, near the botanical garden line's upper terminal. A bus fare figure is not stated in our sources, so check the current Horários do Funchal fare before you travel.

This routing skips the cable car entirely and skips the view from the air, but it is the option that does not depend on the 16:50 last boarding.

By Car

Drive to Caminho das Voltas 15, Funchal. The main station has free parking, which is rare on this steep hillside and a genuine reason to choose the car if you have one, since most Monte-area attractions offer none. From the car park you are at the garden entrance and the cable car terminal in the same spot, so you can still ride the cabin over to Monte and back if you want the valley crossing without moving your car at all.

The consequence for planning is that a car removes the only real bottleneck of this attraction, the 16:50 last-boarding cutoff, since you are not depending on catching a specific cabin to get home.

On Foot From Monte

You can walk between Monte and the garden, since the two sides of the valley are linked by road. No official walking time or route between the garden's cable car station and the main building is published by the operator, and no official walking route figure between Monte and the garden appears in our verified sources, so treat any walking estimate you find as unofficial. The cable car or a bus is the reliable way to cover the distance.