São Miguel: A Gentle Guide to the Azores' Green Island

Some islands ask a lot of you. São Miguel does not. The largest island of the Azores — about 745 square kilometres, roughly 65 kilometres from end to end, and home to some 133,000 people — has arranged its finest scenery along a single ribbon of road, with laybys and railings at exactly the places you would want to stop.

You will spend your days looking down into volcanic craters filled with still green and blue water, driving between walls of hydrangeas, and smelling sulphur drift across a village where dinner is still cooked in the ground. Then you will have a cup of tea grown on the hillside behind you, because this is the only place in Europe where tea is harvested at any scale.

It rains here, often and briefly, and that is the whole point: everything is impossibly green. Bring a light waterproof, accept that the clouds come and go, and São Miguel will give you one of the calmest, most beautiful weeks in Europe.

A little history

The Azores lie alone in the North Atlantic, and for most of human history nobody lived here at all. Portuguese settlers began arriving on São Miguel from 1427, chiefly in the 1440s, bringing families from Estremadura, the Algarve and the Alentejo to a landscape of forest and volcanic ash.

The island's first capital was Vila Franca do Campo, on the south coast. In 1522 a catastrophic earthquake and landslide destroyed it, and in 1546 the capital passed to Ponta Delgada, which has held the title ever since and is today the largest city in the whole archipelago.

What followed were a series of boom crops, each of which still shapes what you see. Sugar came first, then orchil, a lichen used for dye. In the nineteenth century São Miguel grew rich shipping oranges to Britain — the manor houses and garden walls around Ponta Delgada date from those years. When citrus disease ended that trade, the islanders turned to tea and to pineapples grown under glass, both of which you can still visit today. Volcanic activity has never quite stopped: the hot springs and fumaroles of Furnas are the quiet breathing of a living volcano beneath your feet.

A house in traditional Azorean style in the village of Sete Cidades, at the foot of the lake that shares its name.

What to see

Lagoa das Sete Cidades

This is the picture that brings people to the Azores: two joined crater lakes, one reading green and one blue, lying inside an enormous caldera in the west of the island, with a small white village on the strip of land between them.

The classic view is from Vista do Rei, at around 544 metres on the caldera rim, named for the visit of King Carlos and Queen Amélia in 1901. It is right beside the road, with a surfaced terrace — no climb at all.

The more dramatic angle is Miradouro da Boca do Inferno, reached from a signposted pull-off on the EN9-1A near Lagoa do Canário. From the car it is a broadly level walk of roughly fifteen minutes through eucalyptus and laurel woods. There are a few uneven, root-crossed stretches and it holds mud for days after rain, so wear closed shoes with grip.

You can also simply drive down into the caldera to the village of Sete Cidades, park flat by the lakeshore and look up at the rim from below — a lovely, effortless alternative when the cloud sits on the viewpoints.

Lagoa do Fogo

The "Lake of Fire" fills a younger crater in the middle of the island, ringed by bare slopes and reached by the EN5-2A, which climbs from coast to coast. The viewpoint at Pico da Barrosa, at around 947 metres, is one of the highest points you can reach by vehicle and looks over the lake and both coastlines at once.

Be aware that in recent summers (roughly mid-June to the end of September) private cars have been barred from the central stretch of the EN5-2A during the day, with a hop-on hop-off shuttle serving the viewpoints instead. Check the current arrangement before you set out. The path down to the lakeshore is steep and takes around thirty minutes each way — easy to skip, as the view from the top is the better one.

Furnas

Furnas sits in its own caldera in the east and is the gentlest place on the island. At the Caldeiras in the village centre, boardwalks run between bubbling, steaming vents at a completely flat grade. Down at Lagoa das Furnas you can watch the lids being lifted off cozido pots buried in hot volcanic soil.

The Parque Terra Nostra, a botanical garden begun in the eighteenth century, is the highlight: broad gravel paths, giant tree ferns, and a large pool of warm, rust-coloured iron water you can sit in for as long as you like. Allow at least an hour, longer if you bathe.

Ponta Delgada

The capital's old centre is small, flat and walkable: a black-and-white cobbled waterfront, the triple arches of the Portas da Cidade, churches in black basalt and white plaster, and an easy marina promenade. Note that Azorean cobbles are handsome but uneven and slippery when wet.

Gorreana tea plantation

On the north coast, Gorreana has produced tea since 1883 and is Europe's oldest tea factory still working. You can walk through the old machinery rooms on one level, taste the teas, and look out over corduroy rows of tea bushes running down to the sea. Next door at Porto Formoso there is a smaller plantation with a similar welcome.

Panoramic view over Lagoa das Sete Cidades, with the two joined crater lakes and the village between them.

The most comfortable ways to enjoy the scenery

São Miguel has no cable car and no scenic railway — it is an island of roads, water and short paths. The good news is that the roads themselves are the attraction.

• The drives. The coastal road from Ribeira Grande east to Nordeste, and the climb up to the Sete Cidades rim, are genuine scenic routes with frequent laybys. Roads are well surfaced but narrow, winding and often misty at altitude. If you would rather not drive, a half- or full-day tour with a driver-guide in a small van is widely available and far more restful.
• Whale and dolphin boats. Ponta Delgada has the island's biggest choice of licensed operators. Trips usually last about three hours and run broadly from April to October, with April and May the richest months for species variety. Choose a larger catamaran rather than a rigid inflatable: there are seats, a roof, a toilet and a much softer ride.
• The islet boat. From the pier at Vila Franca do Campo, a short crossing of roughly ten minutes reaches the Ilhéu de Vila Franca, a flooded volcanic crater forming a near-perfect ring. It is a nature reserve with a daily visitor limit, open only in the summer months, and the rules on swimming inside the crater have been tightened in recent years — ask locally before counting on a dip. Landing involves steps and a jetty.
• The warm water. Thermal pools at Terra Nostra, Poça da Dona Beija and Caldeira Velha are a wonderfully easy way to spend an afternoon. All involve some steps into the water; handrails are usual but not uniform.

Hydrangeas planted at the caldera of Sete Cidades — a common sight along São Miguel's roadsides in summer.

A day out to the east: Nordeste

If you have a spare day, give it to the island's eastern corner. Nordeste is around 90 minutes' drive from Ponta Delgada, or roughly 45 minutes beyond the tea plantations, and the road there is the finest on São Miguel: high above the sea, cut into green cliffs, with a chain of beautifully kept flower-filled viewpoints.

Stop at Ponta do Sossego and Ponta da Madrugada, both laid out as terraced gardens with benches, short level paths and railings over a long drop to the Atlantic. Inland, the Ribeira dos Caldeirões natural park has old water mills and a wooden walkway that brings you within a few metres of a waterfall on an almost flat route.

It is a long day in the car for a driver. Break it with lunch in Nordeste or Furnas, and consider doing the loop clockwise so that you drive the cliff road in the morning light.

Honest advice for comfortable travel

• Base yourself in two places, not one. Ponta Delgada for the west, Furnas or Ribeira Grande for the east. It halves the driving and the eastern viewpoints are a long way from the capital.
• The headline sights need almost no walking. Vista do Rei, Pico da Barrosa, the Nordeste viewpoints and the Furnas caldeiras are all within a few level steps of a car park. You can see the best of São Miguel without a single real hike.
• Watch the cobbles, not the hills. Ponta Delgada and Furnas are essentially flat, but Azorean basalt paving is uneven and becomes genuinely slippery in rain. Shoes with good grip matter more here than walking poles.
• Weather changes by the hour and by altitude. A clouded-over crater can clear in twenty minutes. Keep your plans loose, and if a viewpoint is in fog, drive down to the coast and come back.
• Heat is rarely the problem. Temperatures mostly sit between about 14 and 23 °C. Humidity and sudden rain are the real factors — pack layers and a light waterproof even in August.
• The long walks are optional, and some are not gentle. The circuit of Lagoa das Furnas is about 9.5 km and allow some three hours; it is flat but can be very muddy. The descents to the Lagoa do Fogo and Sete Cidades shorelines are steep and best admired from above.
• Hire the smallest car you are comfortable in, and book an automatic early — the lanes are narrow and the gradients steep. An airport taxi plus organised tours is a perfectly good car-free alternative.
• Mind the summer road rules. Access restrictions on the Lagoa do Fogo road and visitor caps at the Vila Franca islet are now normal in high season. Confirm them a day or two ahead.
• Medical care is reassuring. Ponta Delgada has the archipelago's main hospital and plenty of pharmacies; rural chemists keep shorter hours.

View over Sete Cidades and Lagoa Azul from the caldera rim.

What to eat

São Miguel's cooking is simple, generous and unlike anywhere else in Portugal.

The dish to try once is cozido das Furnas — beef, pork, chicken, sausage, cabbage, potatoes and yams layered in a pot, buried in volcanic soil beside Lagoa das Furnas and cooked by the earth itself for several hours. Restaurants in Furnas village serve it at lunchtime; it is enormous, so one portion between two is no disgrace.

With it, look for bolo lêvedo, a soft, slightly sweet griddle muffin from Furnas, eaten warm with butter or used for sandwiches. For dessert, the queijadas de Vila Franca do Campo are small tarts of fresh cheese, sugar and egg, baked to a closely guarded local recipe.

The Atlantic supplies limpets grilled with garlic butter, fresh tuna and bife de atum, and excellent local beef — the cattle you see grazing on every slope are the island's real industry. Finish with Gorreana tea, or a slice of the small, intensely sweet greenhouse-grown Azorean pineapple.

Getting there

Our verdict

São Miguel is one of the kindest destinations we know for travellers who want wild, dramatic landscape without the effort usually attached to it. The craters, the lakes, the cliffs and the hydrangeas are all reachable from a parked car; the hot springs ask nothing of you but a towel; the whale boats do the moving while you sit still.

It is not a place for ticking off monuments. It is a place for driving slowly, stopping often, waiting for a cloud to lift, and sitting down to a long lunch that was cooked in the ground. Go between May and October, give it most of a week, don't try to see it all in one base — and let the weather decide the order of your days.

The Sete Cidades caldera seen from the southwest, Sete Cidades, Azores.

“Two lakes in one crater, one green, one blue, and a whole ocean keeping them company.”

Photo credits

• Green and blue lagoons, Lagoa das Sete Cidades, São Miguel Island, Azores, Portugal PPL1-Corrected-2: Jules Verne Times Two, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Town of Sete Cidades, São Miguel island, Azores Portugal: Gonçalo Torres, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• View overlooking the Sete Cidades Lagoon, São Miguel island, Azores Portugal: Gonçalo Torres, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Sete Cidades Caldera Hydrangea macrophylla planted: Ymblanter, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• View of Sete Cidades and Lagoa Azul 2011: JopkeB, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Sete Cidades Caldera seen from the southwest: Ymblanter, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons