One morning during our holiday in Funchal I decided to take a walk to one of the old forts that are dotted around the city, namely São João Batista Fort, also known as ‘Pico Fort’. I chose this one based on an online recommendation as it has panoramic views across the city.

While not far from out hotel as the crow flies, Funchal is a hilly place and the route was far from a straight line. Nor was it flat – requiring the ascension and descent of a couple of ridges on the way – the final stretch in particular was pretty steep.

While I didn’t set out to document the trip, the photos included here today were shot on the way. The first shows a view of the fort as I began my descent from the first ridge. While it looks like I could walk straight towards it, the twisting route instead took me to the right – effectively where the neck of the bottle on the advertising hoarding points.

The next two pictures are a couple of buildings that just caught my eye. I like the layering of the first shot.

After paying the entrance fee, I gained entrance to the base of the fort before climbing to the main gate, which provided a nicely framed picture of the ocean beyond.

The views over the town were nice, both down towards the Atlantic, and also looking north to the cloud covered mountains, their foothills blanketed by homes.

The final shot is of a tree that stood in the courtyard within the fortress walls and which I photographed with both film and digital. The digital shots were nice, but I think this film shot looks pretty good too.

The fort is quite big but, sadly, much of it is closed to public access with only a single chamber accessible, containing pictures and descriptions of the fort through its history. I spoke to a member of staff about the rest of the building but he only said that it would be accessible “in future”. Nonetheless it was still worth the walk and I enjoyed the hike and views.

I took more pictures on the way back down, but I’ll save those for another day.

Nikon F70, Nikkor 28-80mm f.3.5-5.6 AF-D & Kodak Portra 160 / [shots 4 & 5] Fujifilm Superia 100 (expired in 2008). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro

Taken 26 June 2026.