Yesterday we just came back from an absolutely amazing week on one of the nine Azores Islands Sao Miguel. Sao Miguel is the biggest and most visited island of these nine and if all of them are as beautiful as Sao Miguel then this archipelago will have a booming tourist industry in the coming years since this is still a gem and not many know about how beautiful it is.
For us it was an easy trip since we life in Lagos on the Algarve. Only 2 hours flight from Lisbon and flights are pretty affordable, at least this time of the year. On our first day we arrived relatively late so we did not had that much time to do sightseeing. We only picked up our rental car and started our way to our Airbnb.
Since the Parque Natural da Ribeira dos Caldeirões was on the way to our Airbnb we made our first and only stop of the day there. When I saw the huge car park I already knew it has to be something that attracts a lot of tourists and therefore it must be beautiful. It was beautiful and the weather was getting better as well. We had rain when we landed and forecast for the whole week was the worst I´ve ever seen. But as you can see we were quite lucky.
From photos I knew that this place is beautiful but in real life its even better. If you live in the algarve and don't know much about Portugal, you might think it's a different country. The algarve is beautiful but its mainly the coastline and there is not much apart from that. Furthermore its pretty dry and this island is the opposite. Its constantly raining and the weather can change in minutes and this is way it is so lush and green.
This was such an amazing first stop and we were totally blown away. For the fact that it was our arrival day and the weather forecast was horrible it was an amazing hour we´ve spent here. All these old, tiny houses, the waterfalls and green hills made us feel like we´re in the Shire from Lord of the Rings. There are also some picknick spots with little huts and barbecues.
There also is a restaurant with a nice terrace from where you can enjoy the view with a cold drink. Or a warm drink? As said, weather can change quickly...
My favourite part of this stop was the huge waterfall at the end of the short walking track. Did not expect such a cool waterfall here.
There is one really huge benefit when you decide to go visit that island in late october and that is the fact that there are way less tourists than in summer. I can only imagine how packed that spot is during a weekend in summer. This is the perfect instagram spot and it must be absolutely crowded with people taking selfies, doing vlogs and talking to their iPhones about how beautiful it is.
For a first day this was pretty solid and we went to our airbnb very happy. Until we arrived at the Airbnb, we had some bad luck again but more about this in the next blog.
you will find this post on pinmapple as well
