Crammed between the Mercado dos Lavradores and the Fortaleza de Santiago, Funchal's 'Old Zone' is the most happening place on Madeira these days. A dilapidated area of abandoned 19th-century fishermen's cottages and merchants' houses just a few years ago, this moody neighbourhood of tightly packed streets, basalt arches, tiny chapels and forgotten corners has been transformed in recent years into Funchal’s nightlife epicentre by the arrival of new and imaginative bars, restaurants and hostels.
No more than few metres wide, Funchal's funkiest street, Rua de Santa Maria, runs the entire length of the Zona Velha, its cobbles a car-free throng of tourists and locals from lunchtime to breakfast. By day it's almost blocked in places by the tables and chairs of some of Funchal's best restaurants; by night the crowds spill out of the tiny bars, ponchas and caipirinhas in hand. There's also a lot of history in this street, from the diminutive 17th-century Capela da Boa Viagem , where it intersects Rua de Boa Viagem, to the tall merchants' houses, their musty cellars harking back to the first settlers and Madeira's days as a place of Atlantic trade. This is also where you'll find the vast majority of street art done as part of the Open Doors Arts Project.
Rua de Santa Maria widens out towards its eastern end into pretty Largo do Corpo Santo, where there are a couple of low-key attractions amid the touristy restaurants. The Capela do Corpo Santo is the old fishermen's chapel, though only the 15th-century portal is from the original building. The only section of Funchal's 16th-century city wall to have survived can also be found nearby.
Gliding silently above the red-tiled roofs of the Zona Velha are the cabins of the Teleférico (cable car), its 21st-century glass-and-steel terminus the dominant feature of the Zone Velha seafront. At the other end is the Jardim do Almirante Reis , once a football pitch (hence the footballer statue) but now a place tourists and Funchalese come to hang out.
