1 June, 2016 | JP Travel Diaries

Being in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, it rains quite often on the Azores archipelago. In fact, it rained every single day we were there but given our unique “shelter“, we didn’t mind much. Besides, the sun always came out after the rain. They have neither real winter nor real summer, the weather is constantly mild, almost like spring time all year round, which is actually quite nice. The most popular activity on Sao Miguel, or any other island, is hiking, and the most pleasant one, for us ;-), is taking a long dip in one of the natural hotsprings in the volcanic village of Furnas.

Azores-28 — 37°C natual thermal pool in Terra Nostra Botanical Park

Azores-30 — Terra Nostra Botanical Garden

Azores-35 — Volcanic beach with black sand

Azores-12 — Local aged cheese from the island of Sao Jorge, hard to resist…

Azores-11 — Wines from Picco island, we didn’t have one we didn’t like

Azores-17 — Ermida de Nossa Senhora da Paz – Our Lady of Peace chapel in Vila Franca do Campo

Some fun facts about the Azores and its 9 islands:

All are volcanic islands dating back to million years ago.
It is an autonomous region with its own government and administrations within the Portugal Republic.
Sao Miguelis the largest of all islands and is home to Europe’s two and only tea plantations, Gorreana & Porto FormosoFlat-16q4
both on the north coast.
Due to its unique weather condition, all islands are very green and most flowers are in bloom all year round.
Each island has its own distinct characteristics and specialty products: Pico is known for its high mountains and wine, Sao Miguel for its tea and agricultural products, Sao Jorge for its excellent cheese, Faial for its volcanos, Flores for its valleys, Santa Maria for its brown sandy beaches.
The “Azores High” climate is named after the archipelago, distictive for its high atmospheric pressure.

We have to admit we’re quite intriqued about what the other islands have to offer. This is undoubtedly one of the places we would come back for more.

The title has said it all. The minute we arrived in this amazingly beautiful “resort” on Sao Miquel – the biggest island in the Azores, all the sickness and hustles of the past few days were immediately forgotten. The owners, Jorge from Sao Miquel and Eleni from Australia/Greece, renovated their property and turned it into a wedding locatin just last year. They added the Greek chapel and a “glass house”, in which the newlywed couple could spend the night in the “honeymoon suite” in the back. We call it the glass house because the front (living) room is made entirely of glasses. It is one huge open space with the bedroom/honeymoon suite and the bathroom are “hidden” behind the open kitchen. We loved the view in here so much that we chose to sleep on the bed-couch in the middle of the glass house just to take it all in.