Portugal summit
Pico Ruivo
You can see 164 km from here, looking north.
Calculating the panorama…
Drag to turn around. The relief is drawn 2.2 times taller so the ridges can be read; far ridges are paler, as in the real air.
The view
Up to 164 km away.
Calculated on the relief one degree at a time, up to 250 km, with the curvature of the Earth and the refraction of the air: what stands above the horizon from here.
Our own rating, from the relief and the climate only: open horizon (35 points), how far you see (25), sea and named peaks in view (20) and clear months (20).
- 164 kmFarthest ridgelooking north
- 100%Open horizonof the circle where the horizon is below your eyes
- 94%Seaof the circle where the horizon is the sea
- 5Peaks in viewnamed summits that rise above the relief in front
- 1,825 mAltitudeabove the sea, at the highest point of the viewpoint
The 5 peaks you can name from here
From west to east as you turn around: height, distance and direction. Each one links to its guide on Peakyas, our mountain atlas.
From the relief only: buildings, trees and haze are not in the model. On a hazy day you see much less; 250 km is the limit of our calculation.
The sun
The best sunsets are from June to September.
When the sun really disappears from this viewpoint — behind the relief or into the sea — and in which direction, on the 15th of each month, in local time.
- Jansouth-west-2 min before the sea-level sunset24%
- Febwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset27%
- Marwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset28%
- Aprwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset34%
- Maynorth-west-4 min before the sea-level sunset34%
- Junnorth-west-2 min before the sea-level sunset40%
- Julnorth-west-2 min before the sea-level sunset40%
- Augwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset44%
- Sepwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset44%
- Octwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset38%
- Novwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset26%
- Decsouth-west-2 min before the sea-level sunset25%
- Time: when the sun goes behind the horizon you see from here.
- Minutes: how much earlier the relief hides the sun.
- %: share of clear sky that month (NASA, 2001–2020).
The highlighted months are the clearest. Golden hour starts about an hour before.
The place
Pico Ruivo.
Highest peak on the Madeira Islands
Pico Ruivo is a summit in Portugal, 1,825 m above the sea.
On a clear day the farthest ridge you can see is 164 km away, looking north.
The sea fills 94% of the horizon.
5 named peaks rise above the relief in front; the most prominent is Pico do Areeiro (1,818 m), 3 km away.
The horizon is open, below your eyes, over 100% of the circle.
The skies are clearest from June to September.
Get there and stay
- Pico Ruivocampsite · 0.2 km · 19 within 10 km
- Eira Do Serradoplace to stay · 5.7 km · 83 within 10 km
- Curral das Freirasnearest town · 5.0 km in a straight linePlaces to stay in Curral das FreirasBooking.com · sponsored link↗
- Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport (FNC)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 17 km in a straight lineCar hire at FNC airport (Funchal)Discover Cars · sponsored link↗
Plan the visit
A guided tour, a bed nearby, a car.
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
From above
The viewpoint and its surroundings.
The satellite image of the 6 × 6 km around the viewpoint, with what OpenStreetMap shows nearby.
Around, in OpenStreetMap
- 48other viewpoints within 5 kmPico do Arieiro, Balcões, Lombo da Ilha and 45 more
- 42named peaks within 5 kmGrande, Torres, Jorge and 39 more
- 16marked trails within 3 kmPR 1 - Vereda do Areeiro, PR 1.2 - Vereda do Pico Ruivo, PR 1.1 - Vereda da Ilha and 13 more
- 14shelters and huts within 5 km
- 6car parks within 3 km
- 1visitor centres within 5 kmCentro da Freira da Madeira - Doutor Rui Silva
- 3restaurants and cafés within 3 km
- 19campsites within 10 kmPico Ruivo, Unofficial flat ground suitable to pitch a discreet tent, Pico das Pedras and 16 more
- 83places to stay within 10 kmEira Do Serrado, Ribeiro Frio Cottage, Solar de Boaventura and 80 more
- cable car and funicular stations within 5 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.
In our other atlases
What you see from Pico Ruivo, and what is near.
Everything around this viewpoint — mountains, water, forests, birds, caves and the night sky — in the family's atlases.
Peakyas47 mountains within 25 km
Coastya1 beaches within 10 km
Darkskyas4 dark-sky places within 30 kmFigures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, OpenStreetMap, GBIF). Links open when each site is online.
Photographs
The view, as people saw it.
Other viewpoints nearby.
Pico Ruivo
Portugal
- 82Viewyas Score
- 164 kmFarthest ridge
- 5Peaks in view
- 1,825 mAltitude
Boca dos Namorados
Portugal · 8 km
- 72Viewyas Score
- 125 kmFarthest ridge
- 2Peaks in view
- 1,060 mAltitude
Cabo Girão
Portugal · 13 km
- 70Viewyas Score
- 94 kmFarthest ridge
- 2Peaks in view
- 597 mAltitude
Where these figures come from
| Name and type | Wikidata (Q473169) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Sun | J. Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms |
| Peaks in view | Peakyas (Wikidata, CC0) |
| Panorama and altitude | Copernicus DEM GLO-90 / GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Clouds | NASA POWER (CERES SYN1deg, 2001–2020; MERRA-2) |
| What is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Sister atlases | Peakyas, Islandyas, Coastya, Forestyas, Birdyas, Darkskyas, Cavernyas |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?
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Every cave with its real depth and length: the rock above, the temperature inside all year, and how to visit.Visit dark skies
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