Small delights, epic natural beauty: Why we love the Azores

We are delighted that you are considering a visit to the Azores with us, and we cannot wait to share its special places and people with you.

The Azores are, of course, Portuguese territory. The dominant language is Portuguese, the currency is the Euro, vintages from the Douro and Alentejo pepper wine lists across the archipelago and it isn’t particularly difficult to get a decent pastel de nata as you travel.

But once you have managed to locate them on a map, you’ll see that the islands are further from Lisbon than the Sahara Desert or the Pyrenees mountains are. They are not actually that much closer to the Portuguese capital than London is.

With its tea plantations, banana groves, mango trees and coffee cultivation, the archipelago therefore has an exotic allure which defies European borders. 

Fumaroles hiss and spit boiling gases into the air, laurisilva cloud forest covers higher elevations, rambling coastal vines are protected by a mindboggling mass of lava rock walls and the Pico stratovolcano rises majestically above the clouds.

Once you penetrate the (very tasty) outer Portuguese layer, the Azorean islands soon become a destination in their own right, independent of European cultural references. 

To come here is to explore on the edge of Europe, a mid-Atlantic archipelago 1,400km from anywhere, isolated for centuries and formed by molten lava over a span of 5 million years or more. That makes it all the more exciting for us travellers.

Over the course of your travels, you can experience it all; the jaw-dropping views over the Sete Cidades crater complex, a memorable hike down through native forest to the lava rock coast, your first glimpse of Portugal’s highest peak as the clouds part. 

Whales, dolphins and a sea of blue hydrangeas.

But what makes this place even more special are those moments you can’t capture on a postcard or a fridge magnet.

It is visiting a tiny mechanical distillery which is still used by local families to make moonshine, a family day out with card games and dominoes and wine and a roaring fire to keep warm, like it was still the 1950s.

It's being held up on the highland road as a farmer walks his herd of cows along the road from field to field, a fluffy white sheep following for no apparent reason.

It is meeting Nunes at his little coffee plantation and seeing pictures of him and his son peeling the fruits by hand in their kitchen, gathered around a grainy box telly, and how his wife would roast the beans on their hob with nothing but a simple frying pan. The absolute epitome of a family business.

It is following a sign to an azulejo tile workshop on a whim, winding towards the very end of the island, where few tourists ever tread, to be met by the lovely Isabelle who shares her craft, her kiln, even her home, with great pride and gratitude.

It is all the people you meet along the way, and the utterly bizarre 'have-to-experience-it-to-believe-it' calls of the cagarro shearwaters etching their chaotic calls onto your memory.

We hope this whets the appetite for your travels, and has you itching to explore these tiny islands in the middle of the great blue ocean.

You'll have a whale of a time...