Piscinas Naturais do Seixal

Seasonal.

• Outdoors
• From 8
• Children free
• Just turn up

Free volcanic rock pools below Seixal, lifeguarded in summer since 2024, with changing rooms and a snack bar but no shallow water anywhere.

This is the wilder, cheaper twin of the Porto Moniz pools: the same black lava and turquoise water, none of the fencing, and no children's pool. SANAS Madeira put a lifeguard post here in July 2024 after years of unsupervised swimming, and the crew are lifeboat-qualified with a radio link to the Porto Moniz station - worth knowing when weighing this against the ticketed complex up the road. The basins are natural rock of uneven depth with the open Atlantic behind the sill.

Worth knowing: If the children cannot swim confidently, drive the extra fifteen minutes to Porto Moniz and pay the three euros for the shallow pool - the free one there, by the Cachalote restaurant, is no substitute either. The car park here is small and full by mid-morning in August, and the way down is slippery.

Opening hours

The operator publishes no opening hours. Phone before you drive.

Prices

Free, with free parking, and there is very little of it. Changing rooms, showers and a snack bar on site.

Season

Open and free all year, but the lifeguard is summer only - outside the bathing season nobody is watching. The pools are unusable and dangerous whenever the north swell runs, which is most of the winter.

Getting there

Prices and opening times change without notice, and on this island they change often. Everything here carries the date it was checked in our research notes; if a place has moved or closed, tell us and we will fix it.