Santana feels like a compulsory visit as a UNESCO heritage site. And so we go. The drive from Porto Moniz feels long, however. The landscape is possibly even steeper than in the south, the houses and villages more scattered and the roads older.
Santana itself is located towards the top of the mountainside on the north-western coast of Madeira. The place is famous for its traditional, triangular houses. A park has been put up, featuring these — turning a couple into a sweets shop, flower shop, and tourist information. Popping my head into one of them, I figure they were probably aimed at primarily outdoors living: holding two rooms on the ground floor and then storage at the top.
Santana is also a starting point for a couple of levada walks, but again we feel we have arrived too late in the day to properly have time for this. As such, we end up walking around the little traditional houses for a while, before attempting to explore Santana proper.
There isn’t, however, much else there.
The houses are cute, but it has been a long journey for an attraction that we finish visiting in nearly no time. I would probably recommend to pop by if you are in the area anyway, but I wouldn’t recommend Santana as an attraction in itself. Still. I suppose that is one UNESCO Heritage Site ticked off the to-do list.
