What to do in the Azores

[Roberto]

What I would like is advice on is what to do, what to miss, and what not to miss on land.

I would not miss... not doing anything special for about one day while sitting somewhere in Porto Pim (Horta, about 5min by foot from the port), watching the world go by


Ps there is a good restaurant in the corner of the street from the marina to Porto Pim, on the marina side: they serve raw food (fish, meat, seafodd) which you can cook by yourself on a very hot lava brick they bring to your table.

 

[choppy]

Visit & have fun but be aware some locals (golfers in particular of course) there is a darker side to these islands.

 

[Siosarnoir]

Visit & have fun but be aware some locals (golfers in particular of course) there is a darker side to these islands.

I was surprised to hear there is a "darker side" to these islands. I spent two months there in 2011 and saw nothing sinister or worrying??
Could you be more specific please.

 

[capnsensible]

Rather than the Whaling Museum at Larjes do Pico go to the Whaling Factory which does tours. I love whales and found it very very emotional. They do an excellent film which shows that in the old days the whalers in the Azores were really at as much risk as the whales themselves, which is also evidenced by the Baleiros memorial at Pico.

I find Flores irresistible. It is probably the prettiest place I have ever been and is enhanced by the fact it is not possible to buy either a T shirt or a postcard. It is possible in the first bar up the hill from the anchorage at Larjes to buy cheese from Corvu which is some of the nicest I have ever tasted. I was last there in 2010 and I was disappointed to see them building a marina which I think will spoil the island. I tried to get into the harbour on Corvu once but found it difficult to turn around and impossible to anchor and I wouldn't lie alongside the concrete wall.

The cheese from Sao Jorge at the Calhetta mini supermarket is almost as good as Corvu cheese. Calhetta on Sao Jorge is a difficult anchorage but very rewarding if you walk around the town and the nesting Shearwaters are a delightful way to be kept awake at night.

Tereceira as a few people have mentioned is well worth a visit for both the volcanic caves and the 'first city of the New World' as they like to call Angra do Heroismo. I think the ladies toilets in the old Jesuit College deserve a world heritage listing themselves. Very good supermarkets in Praia do Vittorio, and my favourite restaurant/cafe in the Azores 'Tropical Point'.

I find Peter's Cafe de Sport at Horta an abomination with cold food and too loud people. But then I think the worst place in the Azores is Horta. There are much nicer places.

Hurrah, someone else who recognises just how dank Café Peter Sport is!!! There are much better bars in Horta, like it. But definitely not that place, poor service, overpriced and full of poseurs.

Another vote too for Flores. Also like Ponta Del Garda, been there a fair few times.

 

[Neil_Y]

Hurrah, someone else who recognises just how dank Café Peter Sport is!!! There are much better bars in Horta, like it. But definitely not that place, poor service, overpriced and full of poseurs.

+1

 

[tcm]

Cafe Sport is a must-do, regardless, like other "known" places - you gotta go anyway. It's a fun enough place, really, and i have been known to help kick up some early morning street dancing with fiddle and others, with locals tolerating the seasonal silliness.

Hot spring in Sao Miguel, and still not found passion fruit iced tea anywhere else west of Azores....

 

[capnsensible]

Cafe Sport.

No disco ball. Sooo dull....

 

[Woodlouse]

Hurrah, someone else who recognises just how dank Café Peter Sport is!!! There are much better bars in Horta, like it. But definitely not that place, poor service, overpriced and full of poseurs.

Another vote too for Flores. Also like Ponta Del Garda, been there a fair few times.

It's a rather poor pub I'll grant you that. It is however one of the great meeting places of ocean cruising and if you've been through there a few times then you are almost guaranteed to catch up with someone you haven't seen for years.

 

[capnsensible]

Been to Horta half a dozen times. Me plus wife much prefer the marina bar.

As you leave the marina, turn left towards CPS, halfway along the marina where the road forks is a café on other side of road, old b/w pictures. Met more friends passing through Azores there than ever did in the posing palace.

Each to their own, I suppose.

 

[jerrytug]

Been to Horta half a dozen times. Me plus wife much prefer the marina bar.

As you leave the marina, turn left towards CPS, halfway along the marina where the road forks is a café on other side of road, old b/w pictures. Met more friends passing through Azores there than ever did in the posing palace.

Each to their own, I suppose.

+1 that place,delightfully cool and comfortable,and internet. Thanks for reminding me!

 

[Jamesuk]

Bull fighting n the streets!

 

[webcraft]

Have only been to Horta

Hire a scooter and drive round the island - the is a lava field from a recent volcano eruption that has marooned a lighthouse about 1/2 mile inland

If you hire a scooter get the bigger size . . . SWMBO and I took a 50cc jobbie up to the volcano and it nearly crippled us.

- W

 

[ColinR]

Lots of fiestas over the summer. Check the timing of them and try to take some in especially the one in Angra in Terceira. Angra is a lovely place to spend some time and the island is beautiful, well they all are. Rent a scooter to explore. Horta is great too. Cafe Peter Sport is a must and the scrimshaw museum above is well worth a visit. Velas in Sao Jorge is nice and worth a visit for the sheerwater colony nesting in the cliffs around the harbour. be prepared for the nightly cacophony they make.

Colin

 

[Ex-SolentBoy]

Trip done. Excellent place and all the advice from above much appreciated.

Cafe Sport nothing special, but I paid my three euro for a beer there anyway.
Porto Pim restaurant superb.
Pico is quite a challenge, and it makes you walk like Robocop for several days afterwards.
If you want to see 50 manta rays on the surface of the sea then anchor on the Princess Alice bank. 45nm SW of Horta.

One last bit of advice. I would not swim I'm the marina at Horta if you are of a nervous disposition. I took this photo right outside Cafe Sport.

 

[30boat]

Trip done. Excellent place and all the advice from above much appreciated.

Cafe Sport nothing special, but I paid my three euro for a beer there anyway.
Porto Pim restaurant superb.
Pico is quite a challenge, and it makes you walk like Robocop for several days afterwards.
If you want to see 50 manta rays on the surface of the sea then anchor on the Princess Alice bank. 45nm SW of Horta.

One last bit of advice. I would not swim I'm the marina at Horta if you are of a nervous disposition. I took this photo right outside Cafe Sport.

That's just a fish...

 

[Ex-SolentBoy]

That's just a fish...

Yes, sharks are fish, but when they are seven foot long with sharp teeth their taxonomy becomes less important.