Levada dos Maroços is a beautiful and easy levada walk in the valley of Machico, the island of Madeira’s second-largest city, east of the capital, Funchal.

A levada is a narrow irrigation channel built specifically on the Portuguese island of Madeira to carry water from the wet, rainy mountains in the northwest to the drier, sunnier agricultural areas in the south and southeast.

Machico is historically important because it was the first town discovered in 1419 by the Portuguese seafarers Tristão Vaz Teixeira and João Gonçalves Zarco. The side valleys of the “Ribeira de Machico” are especially picturesque in spring, when the acacia trees are in bloom.