The Azores: Nine island gems with a volcanic past and a magical present

(CNN) — Touring to a paradise on Earth doesn’t essentially require a lengthy, arduous or perilous journey.

The truth is, an unspoiled panorama harking back to a fairytale is barely 5 hours from Boston and about 4 hours from the UK. It’s a land the place waterfalls cascade down iridescent inexperienced slopes; the place roads are rimmed with hydrangea hedges; and the place craggy coasts are blanketed with black sand seashores.

A lost-in-time high quality prevails, whether or not it’s a hamlet of stone dwellings linked by cobbled paths, or locals who stay true to the outdated methods of planting crops on fertile plains on the base of sheer cliffs, or driving horse-drawn carts to ship milk to the cheese manufacturing unit.

Welcome to the Azores, a necklace of 9 enchanting islands that huddle in the course of the Atlantic however are a part of Portugal. The archipelago is an autonomous area positioned roughly 1,000 miles from the Portuguese mainland. The islands’ thermal swimming pools, lush calderas, crater lakes and steaming geysers all bear testomony to the violent volcanic forces that birthed them, but every isle has a distinctive character the place nature in its wildest state prevails.

Azores Airways flies continuous to Ponta Delgada on São Miguel Island from Boston, and to Lajes on Terceira with a stopover in Ponta Delgada year-round. United (from Newark) and Azores Airways (from JFK, on choose days) each have summer time nonstop service to Ponta Delgada. British Airways affords nonstop, summer time service on Saturdays.

After a direct hop to an archipelago seemingly a world away, right here’s what to anticipate on every island:

WESTERN ISLANDS

Flores

Flores is the westernmost island of the Azores. Although its identify interprets to “flowers,” it’s the ample our bodies of water that the majority outline this shockingly emerald inexperienced isle that’s often shrouded in fog.

There are seven crater lakes speckling the undulating inside, together with the the forest inexperienced Lagoa Negra that sits proper beside the cobalt blue Lagoa Comprida, with a completely positioned miradouro (viewpoint) between them.

Among the many island’s verdant cliff partitions dripping with waterfalls, the highly effective Poco do Bacalhau cascades down 300 ft to a petite, swimmable pool.

Corvo

With fewer than 500 inhabitants and one solitary city positioned on the one parcel of land at sea stage, Corvo is the smallest (and most distant) Azorean island, simply 4 miles lengthy and not even three miles huge.

Nonetheless, this wee island (a remnant of an historic volcano about 10 miles north of Flores) is a famend paradise for bird-watchers, who gravitate right here particularly within the fall, hoping to identify yellow-billed cuckoos, Cory’s shearwaters and many different species.

CENTRAL ISLANDS

Faial

For tons of of years, crusing vessels have made the capital port of Horta — famous for its boldly painted seawall — a stopover, together with people who navigated between the New and Previous Worlds within the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Soccer ball-sized globes of sky-blue hydrangeas border roads and body homes alongside the path to the island’s western finish. This desolate, monochromatic space stands in stark distinction to buzzing, colourful Horta.

Pico

The virtually 8,000-foot-tall Mt. Pico, Portugal’s highest peak, dominates the panorama on this island.

Right here, it appears nearly every part is constructed of black basalt lava stone, together with the mosaic of corrals surrounding the native grape vines which have warmed and protected them from the island’s blustery, salty breezes for hundreds of years.

São Jorge

Snaking by means of a panorama of untamed heather and Japanese cedar are scenic footpaths that terminate at fajãs, or cliff-backed fertile plains that have been fashioned from landslides and historic lava flows.

Probably the most beguiling is Fajã de Santo Cristo, accessed through a six-mile-long walkable donkey path that winds down from the cloud-covered summit of Serra de Topo. The route meanders past outdated watermills and gates of gnarled branches to the remoted, waterfront hamlet Fajã de Santo Cristo. Right here residents have a tendency terraced gardens rising yams, cabbage, spinach and tomatoes.

This coast attracts surfers who come for the purpose break waves. The island, nevertheless, is most famed for a culinary delicacy: their tangy cow’s milk cheese.

Graciosa

Lots of the signature sights on Graciosa present a dramatic schooling into the island’s volcanic origins.

The sight on the backside is surreal. In distinction to the lake on the base brimming with chilly rainwater, the cave’s air is saturated with the scent of sulfur, and mud fumaroles bubble and boil at 180 F (82 C). Daylight pours in by means of oculi within the ceiling, revealing yellow crystals shining on the boulder-riddled slopes.

Terceira

Whereas Pico’s black basalt offers that island the looks of black and white brushstrokes, Terceira in some ways makes use of a Crayola crayon palette.

On the north coast, the village of Biscoitos exhibits off its volcanic origins with pure swimming pools of all sizes and depths puncturing the hardened black lava stretching throughout the port. Beside these, seashore towels, umbrellas and loungers will be set out for a day of sunning and soaking.

EASTERN ISLANDS

São Miguel

It’s house to what’s stated to be the world’s oldest industrial greenhouses rising pineapples and Europe’s oldest working tea plantation.

One of many island’s most heralded panorama is the Furnas Valley, a dormant crater that’s draped with foliage and dotted with reminders of its volcanic past, together with inviting scorching springs.

Additionally scenically beautiful, with tree ferns and bunkers crammed with volcanic sand, is the 18-hole Furnas Golf Membership that sits at 1,700 ft above sea stage.

Santa Maria

Santa Maria, essentially the most southern of the Azores, isn’t solely the sunniest of the islands, nevertheless it’s additionally the one one graced with golden sand seashores.

The greens and blues of the ocean, sky and valleys mingle at Miradouro da Pedra Rija, certainly one of many viewpoints that makes for a pretty picnic spot. Forests of Japanese cedar cover the zig-zagging roads, generally beside paths bordered by Azorean blueberries and small orchids.

The hamlet of São Lourenco is particularly standard in the summertime for its photogenic sandy stretch that’s backed by a tapestry of outdated vineyards enclosed by black lava stone partitions.

Jeanine Barone is a New York Metropolis-based journey author who makes a speciality of Portugal and has visited the Azores many occasions.

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