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Beach guide

Praia Formosa, Funchal

Funchal’s big free beach, and the one that surprises people most: Blue Flag, lifeguards, no charge — and black cobbles rather than sand.

Checked against the portaria and the municipality’s own pages on July 26, 2026.

What it actually is

Surface
Pebble (calhau)
Municipality
Funchal

A long shoreline west of the city, in linked bays. There is dark sand at the water line and calhau — rounded basalt cobbles — all the way up the beach, which is what most of Madeira’s coast is actually made of.

Blue Flag awarded for 2026.

Blue Flag 2026
A long shore of grey rounded cobbles falling to a strip of wet black sand at the surf line, flat blue sea to the left and a distant headland with hillside houses.
Praia Formosa: black sand at the water line, cobbles above it. This is what most of Madeira’s coast looks like.Lopatalopez (Wikimedia Commons)

What the state says about it

Annex IV of Portaria n.º 204-A/2026/1 lists it as a designated bathing water, with a 2026 season running June 1, 2026 to September 15, 2026.

It appears in the “praia de banhos” column, which is how the annex records that assistance to bathers is assured.

Neither of those is our judgement. It is which column the beach appears in.

Portaria n.º 204-A/2026/1 · Diário da República, 1.ª série, n.º 84, Suplemento · Anexo IV

What it costs

Free. There is no entry charge.

All fourteen beaches, compared

Getting there

It sits in the concelho of Funchal, which is how the portaria files it.

We print no bus route for this one. Route numbers are published here only for the four destinations checked against the operator’s own guides, and this is not among them.

Getting around without a car
Praia Formosa, west of FunchalOpen in OpenStreetMap© OpenStreetMap contributors

Live, right now

A camera pointed at this place. It starts on its own as you reach it.

Funchal’s biggest beach, and a fair picture of what Madeiran pebble actually looks like.

Camera operated by Frente MarFunchal

The cameras are hosted on YouTube, so opening this page contacts Google. Nothing else on the page does.

What we could not verify here

Carried over from the beaches page word for word, because you will meet these claims elsewhere with a confident number attached.

  • Current admission to Funchal’s bathing complexes. The operator’s tariff page was still serving a 2022 table when we checked.