Azoren Inselhopping Teil 2 – Traumpaar Faial und Pico

Left or right? A flight with free seating is quite a pressure – especially when there are still free seats available on both sides when you enter the small island hopper and important things are at stake: the view of the Pico volcano, namesake of the island of the same name and the highest mountain in Portugal. After 20 minutes of flight time, triumphant roar from the friend at the window seat. “I told you so.” In fact, as if the pilot had listened to our discussions in advance, our propeller plane glides past the summit of Pico Volcano, which seems to be within reach. What a prelude to our second leg of Azores island hopping, which takes us from Terceira to Faial in about thirty minutes by plane.

Seglerflair in Horta

The heart of the fifth largest island of the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores (about half the size of Terceira) Faial is the marina of Horta. The island owes its international flair and the colourful harbour wall to the popular meeting place among Atlantic sailors. This is where each crew immortalizes itself in order to avert possible misfortune at sea. Horta is an uncluttered small town that you have visited in a two-hour walking tour. One of the must-see stops is Peter Café Sport, an institution where locals and sailors alike stop for a bite to eat. If you’re in the mood for something sweet afterwards, I recommend a detour to Gelados Do Atlantico. After three days, I already had regular customer status. With a cup filled with fine, island-typical ice cream varieties, you stroll to the idyllic sandy beach at the “back” of Horta. Porto Pim is the perfect place for a siesta. At the other end of the beach is the former whale factory, which is now a whale museum and provides interesting insights into the history of whaling in the Azores.

Reclaimed land

With a rental car, Faial can easily be circumnavigated in one day. If you’re in a hurry, you can do it in half a time. However, it is worth planning enough time, as there are many great hiking options along the way. This is also the case at Ponta dos Capelinhos. From the church in Capelo, a four-hour circular hike takes you through the bizarre landscape, which was recreated by a volcanic eruption at the end of the 1950s. But before we explore this western tip of Faial, we make a detour to the Morro do Castelo Branco. The white rock is located in the middle of a small nature reserve and offers great views of the southern coastal strip. Also worth seeing is the seaside resort of Varadouro, which reminds me of Hawaii with its lush green, steeply sloping cliffs. In the off-season, there is hardly anything going on here, but it is always pretty to look at. The transition between the densely vegetated slopes and the “new land” is abrupt. In front of us lies a sandy, stony, yellowish lunar landscape. Fascinating. At the lighthouse Farol da Ponta dos Capelinhos there is an interestingly designed museum dedicated to the geological history of the Azores and describes in detail the eruption of Capelinhos. If you buy the complete admission ticket, you can visit the lighthouse at the end of the museum tour – the highlight of the day for us!

Steep coasts, large craters

Unfortunately, we were there at the wrong time of year to photograph the miles of blue hydrangea bushes. These give Faial the nickname “blue island” in the summer months. Nevertheless, the drive along the wild north coasts up to the Caldeira is worth it. When the hills are not shrouded in clouds, the Miradouro da Caldeira offers a great view of the neighbouring island of Pico. There is also the opportunity to walk the eight-kilometre ridge around the 400-metre deep central island crater. The atmosphere up here is almost even more beautiful when the clouds accumulate in the hills and the wafts of fog bathe the place in a mystical light.

Day trip to the neighboring island of Pico

The most beautiful thing about Faial is the view of Pico – with this great morning atmosphere with the perfectly shaped highest mountain in Portugal in the background, hardly anyone can disagree with me. The main town of Madalena is only a thirty-minute ferry ride from Horta. A day trip to the neighbouring island is obvious. If you are not fixated on automatic transmissions like me, you can leave your rental car on Faial and rent a car in Madalena for a day. I, on the other hand, offered my rental car the opportunity to explore the neighboring island. If I had known in advance that this would require me to manoeuvre in reverse onto the transport deck of the ferry, I would probably have thought twice about it. Sometimes it’s better not to know too much. After all, after a brief moment of shock, I knew that I would be able to park my car backwards on a ferry without any problems.

Since we started the ferry crossing shortly after seven o’clock in the morning, we postponed breakfast until our arrival in Madalena. While we fortified ourselves with coffee and fine toast sandwiches at Caffe 5 (Rua Carlos Dabney), we made plans for the sightseeing day on Pico. The hike to the top of the volcano was not an issue for us, because – as we could see well from the plane – there was still quite a lot of snow at the top. A circumnavigation of the island was actually not an option for me. Pico is the second largest island in the Azores and I was afraid that we were underestimating the distances. But nothing there. Before I knew it, we reached the easternmost tip of the island.

By the way, if I had to hand out medals, Pico would get gold. I was amazed by the island with its incredibly wild and endless green north coast. In the highlands there are also some great crater lakes in which the Pico is reflected. Unfortunately, on this day of all days, a nasty low with torrential downpours had to spread to Pico. Although it rained like crazy in the middle of the island, a coastal strip off Lajes was spared. And so we went to the Museu dos Baleeiros to watch an interesting film about the history of whaling on Pico. Some of the former whale watchers on Pico are still active – but since the end of whaling in 1983, they have only been spotted for tourist purposes. Pico and Faial are popular destinations for whale watching. In the months of April, May and June, with a bit of luck, there is even the possibility of spotting blue whales. Even though I would probably be scared of it, I regretted that our planned boat trip fell victim to the bad weather front.

Across the vineyards

But we had more time to explore the vineyards of Pico. The special cultivation technique in combination with the lava stones was classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2004. The areas are spread north and south of Madalena along the coast. At the church in Criação Velha, a circular walk through the so-called Zona do Verdelho starts. A large part of the hiking trail can alternatively be easily done by bike or car (wide gravel paths). Also worth seeing is the Zona de Adegas north of Santa Luzia. There, a number of idyllic wine villages with typical basalt buildings are waiting to be discovered. And from Santa Luzia it is a stone’s throw to the Cella Bar (Rua Da Barca). Unfortunately, the bar was still closed during our visit – but in the summer months this is guaranteed to be Pico’s sundowner hotspot. Instead of a sundowner by the stormy sea, we treated ourselves to a fine dinner in the restaurant Ancoradouro before returning to Horta. Seafood lovers will get their money’s worth here.

[alert color=”FFFFFF” title=”Practical tips for Faial and Pico“]

• Arrival with TAP Portugal (daily connections from Zurich) via Lisbon to the Azores (either directly to Horta or via Terceira / São Miguel with Azores Airlines SATA)
• Centrally located: Hotel do Canal in Horta
• Fein essen: Genuine Restaurant und Canto da Doca in Horta / Ancoradouro Restaurant in Madalena / Bistrot Whale’come in Lajes
• In almost all restaurants you get wine from Pico – the Terras de Lava tasted very good to us, among other things
• In the port of Horta, Norberto and his crew offer whale watching (more info: Whale Watch Azores). It’s best to stop by as soon as you arrive and check the weather.

Our trip to the Azores was made possible by Amin Travel GmbH. Amin Travel specialises in travelling to Portugal with the Azores and Madeira, the Cape Verde Islands, as well as Egypt and Jordan. The small team is happy to put together tailor-made programs. For us, they worked out a program for four islands in 9 days. If you want to follow our island hopping in a more leisurely 14 days, you can book it including TAP flights, hotel accommodation with breakfast and rental car from 1,725 CHF per person [/alert]