Swimming

Lava pools the Atlantic fills and refreshes, fenced and lifeguarded, with a separate children's pool and a playground on the terrace.

• Outdoors
• Any age
• Children free

The island's only water park: five slides, racing lanes, two seawater pools including a shallow one, a lazy river, and a birds-of-prey session included in the ticket.

• Outdoors
• From 3
• Children free

Funchal's municipal lido: two seawater pools, one of them shallow with play equipment, plus ladders straight into the Atlantic, for five euros a head.

• Outdoors
• Any age
• Children free

Two seawater pools - one a proper children's pool with play equipment in it - plus a natural tidal pool, at the quiet end of the Funchal promenade.

• Outdoors
• Any age
• Children free

The old town's sea-bathing terrace: no pool at all, but calm clear water off the rocks, a lifeguard, and a beach library for the hour nobody wants to swim.

• Outdoors
• From 6
• No price published

A modern indoor complex with a heated 25 m pool and a shallow learning tank, sold by the 50-minute slot and cheapest in the middle of the day.

• Indoors
• Any age
• Children from 2.2 €

A heated indoor 25 m pool with a 500-seat gallery and a gym on the edge of Machico, run by the regional sports directorate.

• Indoors
• From 4
• No price published

The covered regional pool inland at Santa Cruz, with a gym attached - the rainy-day answer near the airport, and not the seafront bathing complex of the same town.

• Indoors
• From 4
• No price published

A 25 m six-lane covered pool at the head of the Curral das Freiras valley - the only indoor pool in the Câmara de Lobos municipality.

• Indoors
• From 4
• No price published

The island's only 50 m pool, at Penteada above the university, in a four-pool complex that also has a 25 m pool, a diving tank and a children's learning pool.

• Partly covered
• From 4
• No price published

Two heated indoor pools, 20 m and 25 m, at the Clube Naval sports complex - the island's main children's swimming school, and open to non-members.

• Indoors
• Any age
• Children from 34.65 €

The one stretch of sea on the main island shallow and calm enough for a three-year-old to stand up in, with a first-aid post and changing rooms on the sand.

• Outdoors
• Any age
• Children free

A sheltered east-facing town bay where the sand shelves gently enough for children to walk a long way out, with showers and changing rooms at the town end.

• Outdoors
• Any age
• Children free

Funchal's biggest beach, free and lifeguarded through the season, with a defibrillator on site and nothing shallow for a small child.

• Outdoors
• From 6
• Children free

Nine kilometres of soft sand where a parent can walk a child fifty metres out and still be standing - the one beach in the archipelago that needs no excuses.

• Outdoors
• Any age
• Children free