SAO MIGUEL, AZORES – 18 – 21 September 2026
This is the start of what will be 10 days in the Azores. The archipelago consists of nine islands out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and they are part of Portugal. We will be visiting four of them. This blog post records our visit to the first and largest island, Sao Miguel (population 133,000), we will be here for four nights (3 days of exploring). Embarrassing fact … I hadn’t even heard of the Azores until Christine suggested we add them to our trip!
And, because the lead up to this trip was filled with a gazillion activities demanding my attention, I hadn’t even taken the time to Google where we were going.
DAY 1 – We flew from Lisbon to Ponta Delgada and were picked up by a representative of the tour company, Collette, they will be organising everything for us. We were driven to our hotel Vila Gale, which was once a hospital/convent built in the 1800s. It’s been totally restored and redecorated and is very nice … indoor and outdoor pools, spa and gym, and the architecture is amazing – it’s truly impressive what they built in the 1800s.
The view from the airplane as we arrived at Sao Miguel was stunning. Look at those cliffs! I found out later that the fields were bordered with dry rock walls (made out of volcanic rocks) and then hydrangea plants cover some of them. Hydrangeas are invasive to the island, and they’ve well and truly taken over.
Cool fact, when the island was first inhabited by the Portuguese, if someone wanted land they just put a dry rock wall around the land (made out of volcanic rock) that they wanted and that was it. Many of the old houses outside of the cities had dry walls around them and crops growing in the yard.
Another aerial shot of the island, thanks to Christine and her iPad. In the distance is the volcano’s caldera which we would be visiting on day 2.
We spent the rest of the day familiarising ourselves with the area and had a lovely lunch (with wine). We then chilled out until the afternoon when we had a familiarisation with the rest of the group.
I wasn’t aware that we were on a guided tour for the next 12 days (didn’t read the fine print LOL). On other trips in touristy zones I’d come across guides with flags and thought to myself “omg, not sure I’d like following someone like that” but as it turns out, we didn’t have to follow Rita like the Pied Piper, we had ear-buds and could hear her quite a distance away, so could stop whenever we wanted. I had never heard of Collette tours before but apparently they are well known and consider run a great tour.
There are 23 of us on the tour (yes, I did groan a bit), we are the only Australians, I think there are 4 Canadians and the rest are Americans. Rita suggested that politics are not discussed amongst the group – probably a good idea LOL.
DAY 2 – The first half of the day was spent walking around the old part of the city. Apart from the Portuguese influence in the city, there were many statues recognising the Portuguese explorations in the 17th and 18th centuries, colonising such places as Brazil, Macau, Uruguay, some parts of the Caribbean.
The town has lots of statues.
Many of the buildings are either constructed with volcanic rock (lava), or decorated with it. They also use a lot of limestone, for example, the white cobblestones on the sidewalks are limestone.
One of the many historic buildings in the old part of the town.
See how the volcanic rock was even made into such elaborate carvings as this.
The fort across the road from Vila Gale. Apparently it’s still a functioning fort housing some soldiers and a nice museum.
It appears that the Portuguese brought a lot of plants back from their voyagers. Hydrangeas (of course), plus tree ferns (they look like they’re from NZ), ginger lilies (from China), oleanders, Japanese Wind Flowers, Naked Ladies (aka Beledonas) and the pictured balsams. And, Christine even found a Wollomi Pine at the Botanical Gardens. Those Portuguese certainly got around!
Inside of one of the Churches in the old part of the city. On the outside, it looked rather plain, but once inside the ornateness of the decorations and the amount of gold leaf on the walls was incredible.
Close up of the altar.
Another close up of one of the side altars.
This is a view of the church beside our hotel, we hear the chiming of the bell on the hour. I didn’t realise it, but the chiming of the bell back in the middle ages, was the way that the villagers knew what time it was to either go to church, or when, say, the market opened up. No-one had watches in those days lol.
The tour finished around noon and I wandered around town a little longer finding this beautiful interior of a convent, stunning. I’ll probably get to the stage when I don’t want to see any more churches, but for the moment I’m handling them.
This tree is apparently 150 years old, Rita told us it was a New Zealand Christmas tree, but Christine and I don’t think that’s the case. In any event, the branches at the bottom are so weighty that they have to be held up by metal stakes.
The gateway to the town … not standing where it once stood, they moved it when the major road was constructed.
We returned to the hotel at lunchtime, we were pretty much stuffed after the around town walk! At 2pm we then congregated in the foyer and boarded a bus which would take us to Sete Cidades Lagoon. This looks like a volcanic caldera, but they don’t seem to call it that.
This is Rita’s one which is better than my photo, you can see the blue lake in the distance and the green lake in the foreground.
My photo, certainly not as good as Rita’s.
Then we were driven down to the level of the lake, great view.
We were then taken to a pineapple plantation, which I didn’t think was all that blogworthy, however, I found out how to grow a pineapple at home, a little different to how I grew one about 10 years ago lol.
They plant them, and then take them out of the soil, clean them up remove some leaves and then plant them again (lot of effort).
And here are some older ones.
Then, they took us into the predictable “shop” and gave us samples of pineapple ice cream, pineapple liqueur and pineapple soft drink, the ice cream was definitely blogworthy particularly when I mixed it with the liqueur! We were dropped back at the hotel and then taken out for a lovely dinner (and as much red wine as I could drink). The alcohol didn’t cure my jet lag!
DAY 3 – This morning we were picked up again by the bus. The group is definitely getting a bet more friendly – they’ll all probably be my new best friends after 12 days.
Our first stop today is to a visit a father and son who are local weavers. They work from their house and it was interesting to see them at work.
The father is around 60.
He’s making a picnic basket.
And his son is making a small cup holder (so he could show us from start to finish). Sadly, they don’t have anyone in the family who wishes to take up the craft. They did have a wicker chair in the workshop and if I could have shipped it to Australia I would have it was a work of art.
Next stop was the caldera of the Furnas Volcano (dormant), where a traditional Azorean dish (cozido das furnas) food can be slowly cooked underground by thermal heat. They have these round holes (I think they’ve got a cement ring to keep them stable), then they put a pot of food in the hole and cover it, 6 hours later it’s cooked.
The man in green is the “overseer” who makes sure those getting their pot of food don’t get hurt or burned. He’s helping out a restaurant owner who has cooked up lunch for us. He loaded the two pots into his van and took them off to the restaurant.
Lots of muddy, thermal pools.
Cool Fact … there are 13 dormant volcanos on this island and they all have secondary volcanic activity. On all 9 islands, there are a total of 1700 volcanos!
And this is a pool with a bit of a geyser up the back – we couldn’t get too close to it. Not as impressive as Old Faithful!
And this was obviously an area where they cooked food in the cement pipe but it’s no longer safe to go near it.
Next stop was the botanical gardens and thermal waters of Terra Nostra, this is right near the entrance and look at the size of those water lily leaves!
We had the choice of exploring the gardens, or taking a dip in the thermal pool, Rhonda, Ray and I chose the pool. I have to say though that it didn’t meet up to my expectations. I was hoping of clear water and a nice secluded pool with lovely vegetation around it.
Something like this, only clear water. I have to say that I’ve never had a thermal pool meet my expectations, I’m definitely going to have to lower them!
After we finished in the pool, took a quick look around the gardens, I only had 15 minutes but figured I’d get a good look. I came unstuck at this point, I came across a small section of the creek and easily stepped over the 1m creek treading on a solid rock. Then I decided (just after I walked past this area) that I need to go back the way we came. I found another crossing spot, and sadly didn’t test it (heuristic trap). The earth I trod on after the rock was not solid and I sank up to my knees in muddy water. I then had to find my way back to the showers to clean myself off. My socks however will never be white again!!!
Back on the bus with wet shoes, damp shorts and no socks, we made our way to another thermal area for lunch.
Each of these thermal springs has a number, not all of them are shooting steam out of them. Maybe the circle of stones shows you where not to walk (although who would walk through this is beyond me).
We made our way up to the restaurant and sat down for lunch. A lovely salad, followed by a bruchetta (with cream cheese and tomatoes) followed by the main course.
This is what was in the big pot, a mixture of beef, chicken, blood pudding (sausage), potatoes, carrots and kale. It was certainly a different way of cooking, and apparently the locals during winter love to go out to the lake and cook up a storm. Sadly (well there are two ways of looking at it), there was limitless wine and I was the only one drinking red wine, never been to a restaurant that supplied limitless wine LOL.
Found another small geyser on the way back to the bus. Thankfully there was a big fence between me and the geyser (after all that wine).
After lunch we were taken to a lookout, where they cooked the lunch at the thermal area is in the bottom rh corner of the photo, it’s surprising that the lake wasn’t warm with all that thermal activity!
This shows you how a caldera forms, specifically the caldera of Furnas Volcano.
I came across another plant that I hadn’t seen before, a Himalayan honeysuckle, apparently the locals make beads out of them when the berries dry out.
Our last stop was one of two tea plantations on the island. We got to see how the tea was harvested and cured (black tea and green tea).
By now we’re all stuffed, we don’t get back to the hotel until 5pm – I know that Christine and I decided to skip dinner, it had been a big day and tomorrow’s going to be even bigger!
DAY 4 – Today some of the group (about 10 of us) we going on a cruise whale and dolphin watching.
We were down at the port at around 8.30am. Beyond the yachts is a breakwater, there were some areas along the coast fortified by cement bollards, so I’m guessing that the seas can be pretty high during a storm.
This is the board that will be taking us out into the Atlantic Ocean.
This is a Common Dolphin, we were hoping to see these, and they were hanging around, but for the 50 or so dolphins that were there, we only saw them under water.
I was hoping to see Sperm whales up close … in fact if I got to see them, I would then not have to make the trip to Bremer Bay in WA (planned for next year). Sadly, the only sighting of the Sperm whales was a mother and child’s blowing, they didn’t actually come up to breach, a bit disappointing, Bremer Bay here I come!
I’d taken a seasickness tablet (along with Rhonda), the seas weren’t that bad but on the way home I dozed off, as did Christine. Taking this photo of us was the highlight of Ray and Rhonda’s trip!
We were very tired after the trip and decided to stay at the hotel instead of going out for dinner, as it happened, apparently it was the best dinner of the last few days (according to our companions).
And so ended our stay in Sao Miguel, tomorrow we’re off to Horta, Faial – our second Azores Island.
Overall impression – I really liked Sao Miguel and Ponta Delgada, there are a lot of tourists there, but it’s small and nothing like mainland Portugal, more intimate and not overwhelming. The green hills and lush vegetation were very impressive. For more active travellers, I am sure there are loads of adventures there, I believe there are many walking tracks, and I saw some people kayaking. I did pass a number of waterfalls – but not sure there’s any canyoning. All in all a great destination.