Because we had quite a bit of time in Portugal, we took our friends' advice and flew over to the Azores for 5 days at the end of our trip. The Azores are like the Hawaii of Portugal, and absolutely breathtaking. We hopped in our little Clio-mobile and motored around the tiny main island of Sao Miguel to check out all of the must-sees.
Stop 1: Furnas. This is where you can famously cook your food in a volcano. Basically we just walked around trying not to get sick from the insanely potent sulfur smell. You can't actually eat anything here, but restaurants have little marked areas where they put their food in the ground. To get to the eating, you have to go into the tiny town nearby. Note: you really need reservations (which we didn't have). Other than enjoying a beautiful walk, and attempting to eating volcano food, Furnas was underwhelming.
After we sufficiently smelled like sulfur, we drove a short ways over the Parque Terra Nostra. This place was beautiful. It's a full garden park with walking paths and many different hot springs at different temperatures. We wish we would have skipped the volcano and came right here. It's also right in a little town, which was great for stopping for ice cream at the end of the day. Tip: wear a swimsuit you're okay with throwing away after the trip because #sulfur. Also, we came here on a sunny day and it was HOT. This is a perfect rainy day activity because of the warm water. Save this for the rain (which there is plenty of in the Azores).
A lot of the draw of the Azores is the photogenic landscapes, so after trying and failing to hike in some nasty weather, we resigned ourselves to driving around the island to take some photos and enjoy the scenery. We ended up finding the abandoned Monte Palace Hotel, which is quite the tourist attraction. You can wander around [read: trespass] and get beautiful views and angles for great photos.
Our primary lodging on the island was at Novovento, this kickass hostel/coworking space with killer views, great WiFi (for Ben's working needs), and really great spaces to hang out/do yoga. It was also pretty close to the Ponta Da Ferraria natural swimming pools, which are little heated spots off of the ocean protected by rocks that you can swim and hang out in for free. Tip- the heated spots are not hot, so not a great cold/rainy day activity.
One thing to note is that because of the tiny size of the island and its location, the weather changes literally minute by minute. There are cameras all over the island that broadcast live streams of the weather, and we found ourselves constantly chasing the sunshine, only to get there and have missed it and be in the rain again. We really enjoyed the views and low key vibe of the island, but were frustrated by our struggle to get active (2 lane roads were not safe for running/biking). It was a beautiful place for a good drive, but we were excited to get back to the hustle and bustle of Lisbon to wrap up our trip!
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