Unmissable places to visit in the Azores

Places you cannot afford to miss in the Azores (part 2)

Hello again! Today, I will continue with the second part of my previous post: what you can't miss in Sao Miguel, the Azores. In the first part I'll talk to you about 7 places, some very well known and others not so much. So, here I'll leave this link here if you haven't already seen it. In the second part, I would like to talk to you about 6 other places that I had the pleasure of visiting in February 2019, during the low tourism season, which made it a very pleasurable trip. . I think I totally hit the mark with my choice of destination for the holidays, despite not having the best atmospheric weather to visit a lot of the places in Sao Miguel.

Gorreana Tea Factory

Like a good habitual green tea drinker, it seems obligatory for me to visit this tea plantation, with its corresponding factory. Strangely enough, Gorreana is the only tea plantation in Europe, and they're the first to say it. Why? The reason they can cultivate tea in the Azores is because the climate is almost consistent, well, for most of the year.

Normally, travellers only visit the factory, where they explain how they collect the tea leaves in detail. Afterwards, the leaves go through the drying out process until it's completely ready for consumption. However, we decided to go to the plantation as well, as it was the other side of the road, in front of the factory. Truth is that it's quite big but even so, we chose to explore the whole thing, top to bottom. I loved this place and in fact, it reminded me a lot of the tea plantations in the Asian countries of the world, such as Sri Lanka or Vietnam. These are places where a lot of the ground is occupied to cultivate tea, which creates a beautiful image of the horizontal lines of tea plants.

After climbing up and then coming back down, we went to the factory where they meticulously told us how they cultivate it and then collect the tea. They also explained the difference between green and black tea, which I didn't know in so much detail before I came here. Inside, the trip is short but worth it. You can watch the machinery that prepares the tea and they also project a video explaining the history of the tea plantation, how it started, why and why it's so important. At the end of the tour, they let us try some free tea, two different kinds, black and green. And we tried them! They also had a little souvenir shop, where they also sold various types of tea, teapots, etc. We left with a bag of green tea and another with black tea with an orange aroma. They were both great. We still have them in our cupboard today, and it reminds us of San Miguel every time we go to make ourselves a hot cuppa. In conclusion, I think you have to visit Gorreana because not only is it culturally and gastronomically rich, but the plantations are a pleasure to see. You just have to look at the photos to see that.

Playa Mosteiros

Despite the fact that the summer has to be a lot better because the temperatures would make you want to go swimming, we decided to go to the Mosteiros beach. Out of all the photos I'd seen of the Azores, these were the ones that caught my attention the most. It's a wild beach, and when we went there was absolutely no one. Not a soul. There's dried black lava all over the place that highlights the white spray of the waves that break with a lot of strength against the rocks. I loved the black sand, which also contrasted with the little white houses around the area.

The thing that made this beach totally different to any others are these two enormous rocks that have been polished by the sea over time. Right behind, you'll see the bigger rock that if you use your imagination, looks like a monastery. I suppose this is where the name "Mosteiros" comes from, which means "monastery" in Portuguese.

Whoever sees the photos of this beach can imagine it belonging to countries like Iceland, for example, where the nature is the most incredible on the planet, untouched and wild, out of the ordinary. But it's like I always say, "you don't need to go very far", and this volcanic beach doesn't have anything to envy of the Icelandic landscapes. Without a doubt, it's one of my favourite places on the island. The photos speak for themselves.

Lagoa do Congro

This lake isn't the most famous of the island, but one that someone recommended for us to go to, so we did. We had pretty bad weather, it was raining and cold, but that just made our trip more wild. I remember that we used Google Maps to find the path down to the lake, but like many times before, Google Maps isn't perfect, so the route wasn't right and didn't take us to the lake. What it did do was leave us in the middle of a path, in the middle of nowhere. We had to walk around for a bit and work out for ourselves how to get down to the lake. Fortunately, our Italian friend who we had met there had an app called Windy Maps which showed all the possible hiking routes. So, he knew the way to get there so we let him guide us. We were in the middle of the forest, but even then we felt like we were hiking. It was quite a wild walk, we had to part the branches of the trees to get through all the time. We stumbled over rocks whilst wet leaves hit us in the face. Absolutely all the leaves were wet and trickling. It had rained a lot, our caps were stuck to our heads, we could feel the humidity and the earth was becoming muddier bit by bit. It was one of the most adventurous moments of the trip.

We finally arrived at the lake, which was covered by the fog. There was a kind of jetty to sit on there, so we went there for a bit to look at the lake. I had seen some photos of when it was sunny and it was really pretty, a shade of green. Clearly the view was different for us, everything was grey. Even so, I really liked the walk through nature, and it was worth it. Without a doubt finishing the day with your shoes completely stained with mud is a good sign. Unfortunately I don't have any photos to show you of this place because as it was raining, I didn't want to get my camera out. Also, it was quite a disconnected area when it came to electronic apparatus. And because of the route we took, we didn't have shelter at any point.

Poço Azul

This small well is found in the north of the island, in Achadinha. We decided to go because we'd seen photos, and the turquoise colour of the water looked enchanting. However, when we arrived at the well, the blue colour had become transparent. We could see the bottom of the well, with a mixture of colours, black, green and brown. Even so, it didn't disappoint us because the walk to get there was really pretty. It was quite a long trip, and all on a downwards slope, which made the way back quite difficult. The way there isn't prepared for anything in particular as it's not a touristic place, so we moved through certain sections of the route grabbing onto tree trunks, plant stems, branches from plants and trees. The hiking path wasn't signposted so we had to use our initiative to be able to find a suitable path, and all of them intersected each other.

I don't know why the water wasn't blue, maybe because it's only like that during the summer because of the suns rays, but I don't know the truth. It was annoying, but even so, the surroundings were very pretty and on the route we took, we had some spectacular views of the sea. Doesn't it remind you of Jurassic Park? Seriously, when I went to the Azores it felt like a cross between Hawaii and Ireland. A great combination.

In short, when we arrived and we checked that it wasn't blue, we decided to make the most of the place and stayed there for a bit. We were 100% alone, and Angel went for a swim. It was cold, fresh, but bearable. I think if you have the time on your trip to the Azores, you should go here and maybe, if you're lucky, you'll find the lake in a shade of blue. You'll have to check for yourselves.

Maia

The beauty of these trips is that when you arrive to these new and spontaneous places, the ones you don't have on your itinerary, they end up being the best parts of the trip. We went to Maia because our Italian friend Carlo (who we met in the hostel) was there. We went to look for him because we had planned to meet up to do a route together. We decided to go to Maia because he told us that it was beautiful, so we decided to listen to him.

Maia is a small and very cute little town, next to the sea. We walked through the town for a while until we walked towards the coast to be able to stay there for a bit and take some photos, and they were beautiful.

There was a hiking route surrounded by wooden fences from where you could admire the ocean and the green hills that protect this town. Also, there were plants with flowers that decorated the whole path. It gave it a bit of a romantic touch, actually. Also, right there there were natural pools that formed a huge hole in the rocks. As it was February, we didn't even think about going swimming. However during the summer, it must be an incredible area to spend the afternoon completely soaked in the salty ocean water. The cliffs were also worthy of seeing and it was actually one of the places I liked the most on Sao Miguel. Calm, pretty and different.

Afterwards, we decided to stop in a supermarket to buy some food for the following few days. Carlo invited us to have some cheese and a coffee that we had in a cafe in the middle of the town. It was a locals place, completely, with old men playing cards and speaking in thick Portuguese, almost incomprehensible for even native speakers! We could tell that these people weren't accustomed to tourists, which meant that they were more friendly and open than other people. For example, the local people of Furnas were a lot more cold and unsociable with us because they get tourists day in day out. It's logical. At the end of the day, tourism is almost too aggressive a lot of the time, so the locals become a lot colder and more reserved towards foreigners. Whereas here, they were so friendly that the landlord of the bar saw us eating our cheese and offered us a stick of bread, and then we spoke to him for a while. We forced ourselves to speak in Portuguese, which the locals also appreciate massively. In conclusion, Maia has a special place in my heart, I even love its name.

Vila Franca do Campo

In this part of Sao Miguel, there's a barely known, tiny islet that you can get to by boat. We saw it sticking out from the main island, so the photos aren't as impressive as if we went there with a drone or even in person, to go for a swim or spend the day. The shape of the lake on the island is quite strange, as it's almost a perfect circle. The blue of the lake stands out against the green of the island. This circular shape is the result of a crater that was completely submerged in water in the past. Is that not weird? I think for geography lovers, not only this island, but the Azores in themselves are the perfect place to learn, enjoy and even thrill oneself.

And that's it for today, my penultimate post about the Azores. In the next few days I'll bring you the final one, where I'll give my own advice about what I think is important to bear in mind when you're planning your visit to this archipelago. I hope you've liked all my photos of these places. I always try and make sure that the places aren't very well known and that I go a little bit out of my comfort zone, so my trips are always different and out of the ordinary. Thanks so much for reading, ad see you for my next entry for even more content. Bye!

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