Fanal Ancient Forest Running Tour

• Daily Running Tours

This trail running experience in Fanal ancient forest starts at Curral Falso (850m) and softly heads up to Fanal forest (1150m) where you will find a green open area with some cows and lots of huge ancient trees. In fact, this really looks like one of those fairy tale magical places.

In this place you’ll find several centenarian laurel trees, like the Canary Laurels (laurus novocanariensis) and the imposing Madeira Laurel (ocotea foetens) with some guardian cows quietly walking around enjoying the silence of this place.

After admiring this beautiful place and stopping in a viewpoint to the valley of Chão da Ribeira, we’ll take our way back going down to the Levada dos Cedros where we have a flat running section from it’s beginning till the road where we started the tour.

The track is a loop of 15km and about 500m elevation gain/loss. The terrain is made of dirt, sometimes muddy, wooden steps, rocks and roots.

Fanal forest is as beautiful with a clear sunny day as in a misty day. In a clear day, you’ll see the whole wide forest, however if the weather is a bit misty, you’ll see the magic of this place.

Coming back in one of the greenest Levadas is just the cherry on the cake!

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a shared tour with other guests. Your running pace might be different than the other participants during the tour, therefore we will ask you to be comprehensive and avoid moving away from the group.

Our tours are also a fun and social experience where the participants share their passion for trail running and nature.