Azores, worth knowing.

Fun facts about Azores

1. 1In Furnas, lunch is cooked by the volcano. Pots of cozido stew are lowered into holes in the hot ground beside the lake and left to cook for hours in volcanic steam.Source: Visit Azores; Azores Getaways
2. 2Sete Cidades has twin lakes, one blue and one green, side by side in a volcanic crater. Legend says they're the tears of a princess and a shepherd who weren't allowed to be together.Source: Azores UNESCO Global Geopark; Futurismo Azores Adventures
3. 3The highest point in all of Portugal isn't on the mainland. It's Mount Pico, a volcano rising out of the middle of the Atlantic on the Azores island of Pico.Source: Azores UNESCO Global Geopark; Wikipedia
4. 4On Pico, grapes grow inside thousands of tiny plots walled with black lava stone, built to shield the vines from wind and sea spray. The whole vineyard landscape is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.Source: UNESCO World Heritage Centre; Wikipedia
5. 5Azores pineapples grow in whitewashed glass greenhouses. For about a week, growers fill the greenhouse with smoke so every plant flowers at the same time, and one pineapple takes up to two years.Source: Plantação de Ananases A. Arruda; Azores Getaways
6. 6Whale spotters still sit in coastal lookouts called vigias, scanning the sea with binoculars. Once they guided whalers; now they radio the whale-watching boats instead.Source: Futurismo Azores Adventures; Azores Getaways

Things to do in Azores

• ◦Stand at Vista do Rei, the King's View, and look down on Sete Cidades' blue and green lakes and a little village inside the crater.Source: Futurismo Azores Adventures; Azores UNESCO Global Geopark
• ◦Terra Nostra garden in Furnas has a warm thermal pool so rich in iron the water is rust-brown. Pack a dark swimsuit: light ones can stain.Source: Parque Terra Nostra; Azores Getaways
• ◦At Ponta da Ferraria, a hot volcanic spring seeps straight into a rocky inlet of the Atlantic, so you can bathe in warm ocean water. How warm depends on the tide.Source: Azores UNESCO Global Geopark; Futurismo Azores Adventures
• ◦Be at the Furnas lake caldeiras around midday to watch cooks lift the cozido pots out of the steaming ground, then taste the stew in the village.Source: Futurismo Azores Adventures; Azores GPS
• ◦Go whale watching: more than 20 kinds of whales and dolphins are seen in Azores waters.Source: Visit Azores; Azores Getaways
• ◦Soak after dark at Poça da Dona Beija in Furnas: warm, iron-rich volcanic pools you can sink into under the night sky.Source: Poça da Dona Beija; Futurismo Azores Adventures

Questions to bring to Azores

From Sojourn's journeys. Ask one over a long dinner or on a slow walk, and let the place do some of the work.

Going together

• When do you feel most like yourself?
• What does rest actually look like for you?
• What is one thing you wish we did more of?

Going solo

• What is the first thing this place is showing you that you didn't expect?
• What does this version of you know that the home version tends to forget?

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