Why We Fell in Love with the Azores

We had barely heard of the Azores before we started looking into them. Madeira was the much more familiar Portuguese island destination, while the Azores felt like something a little more remote, a little less obvious — and that made them all the more intriguing.

Then we started reading about the islands, and it didn't take long to become curious. Nine volcanic islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, far from the Portuguese mainland, covered in lush greenery and surrounded by the open sea. It sounded almost too good to be true. It wasn't.

Arriving in the Azores was one of those moments when you need a little time just to take in what you're seeing. The islands are incredibly green, with forests, hydrangeas and other plants covering the hillsides. Crater lakes appear between the mountains, the ocean is never far away, and cattle graze on seemingly endless green pastures. Even the weather seems to be part of the scenery: one moment it can be raining, the next the sun is shining, only for another shower to arrive shortly afterwards.

But it wasn't only the landscape that caught our attention.

There was something about the atmosphere of the islands that we immediately liked. The local way of life seemed to combine the warmth and openness we associate with southern Europe with a certain island calm — the feeling of being somewhere surrounded by nothing but ocean. And perhaps that is what makes the Azores so different from many other places we've visited.

Our first trip lasted ten days. That sounds like quite a lot until you realise how much there is to see — and that getting to and between the islands takes time. We spent four full days on São Miguel, three on Flores, and another day travelling between the two.

São Miguel was our introduction to the Azores, and it was a pretty convincing one. We drove through an almost ridiculously green landscape, stopped at countless miradouros, explored volcanic crater lakes and wandered around Sete Cidades. We ate lapas grilhada in Mosteiros, visited an island pineapple plantation, tasted tea at Gorreana and ended one of our days in the unique waters of Ferraria, where hot thermal water meets the cool Atlantic.

Then came Flores.

If São Miguel gave us a taste of what the Azores could offer, Flores showed us just how different the islands could be. It felt more remote, more dramatic and somehow even greener. We explored waterfalls, crater lakes, viewpoints and small coastal villages, and eventually found ourselves standing in front of the spectacular Poço Ribeira do Ferreiro, surrounded by a wall of lush vegetation and falling water.

And, naturally, the Azores had one last surprise for us: plans don't always go according to plan.

On our way home, strong winds cancelled our flight from Flores. What could have been a frustrating travel disaster instead turned into another unexpected day on the island — complete with a whale museum, natural swimming pools and another meal by the coast. As we wrote at the time, sometimes the least organised parts of a trip turn out to be the most interesting.

Perhaps that is also why we fell in love with the Azores.

They gave us dramatic landscapes without feeling overwhelming, adventure without requiring an extreme expedition, and plenty of moments that simply happened along the way.

And we didn't leave it there.

We returned later to discover more of the islands. Even during our first journey, a long boat trip between São Miguel and Flores had given us glimpses of other islands and made us want to come back. And come back we did.

The Azores had already convinced us once. We simply weren't finished exploring them yet.