In the middle of the Atlantic, more than half way between New York and Portugal are the Azores islands. A couple thousand miles east of New York City, and scattered over several hundred miles of ocean, the nine islands of the Azores are the closest point in Europe to the United States. That means that a direct flight from Boston takes a mere four hours to reach them – closer than Las Vegas or Aruba.

Thrust out of the seabed by massive volcanic activity millions of years ago, the Azores mark the spot that the European, American, and African tectonic plates meet. Because the islands were created over a millennium ago, each is different both topographically and in terms of vegetation. Because the once uninhabited islands were settled over two centuries, the culture, dialect, cuisine, and tradition of each island varies noticeably.

The Azores remind visitors of not one place, but of many. The architecture is Portuguese, with a strong local flavor (the local rocks are all black), the landscape is rolling, open, and wild - not unlike Ireland or Hawaii. The geysers, crater lakes, and ancient lava flowers remind one of a Pacific island. And the mild year-round climate is always fresh and spring-like. Even summer is unique in the Azores, often arriving in July and staying into December. Here, you will find the only tea plantations in Europe, Portugal’s tallest peak, more bullfights than anywhere else in Europe, 6,000 pineapple plantations, and any and every flower that blooms in the Western hemisphere (well, it just seems that way…).

Here is one word to describe this place: authentic. While there are new, luxurious hotels, and more and more upscale places to eat, the untouched rural life, seafaring villages, and green interior rich in lakes and waterfalls seem untouched, and lost in time. Tourism still falls behind fishing and farming in the Azorean economy.

So what is there to do in this Atlantic kingdom? With more than 1,200 special plants, flowers, trees, vast open fields, country roads, and more waterfalls per square inch than any other island chain in the world, the Azores are a hiker’s, walker’s, or cyclist’s paradise, waiting to be explored. Ribbons of road twist along black rock sea cliffs, plugging down into a green-blue ocean. Tiny towns with local cafes where the menu is whatever the fishing boats brought in. You can see the legacy of America’s whaling industry – a century and a half ago every whaling expedition called on the Azores, and the Azoreans learned scrimshaw and whalebone carving from the Americas. Recently, divers have mined ancient bone dumping grounds to bring up whalebone for jewelry, scrimshaw, and carving. Seeing a whale is no challenge, numerous outfitters employ former whalers to spot for them, and then take adventurous tourists out in semi-inflatable boats to see the whales from yards away.

If you like the kind of memories that come with a surge of adrenaline, these islands are for you: up-close whale-watching, dramatic bullfights, and challenging hikes atop dormant volcanoes with sweeping views.

The volcanic genesis of the Azores is unmistakable. Thousands of years of vegetation cannot hide the deep craters, many of which are now filled with deep lakes. Geysers and sulfur springs are common. The Azores are also known for their rolling landscapes, sprinkled with tiny settlements of whitewashed or black stone houses. The hillsides are planted with vineyards, fruit orchards, and tea plantations. Some coastlines are strewn with black rocks, rugged and often plunging hundreds of feet into the emerald sea.

On the island of Faial, one finds the remains of a lighthouse marking the site of a yearlong 1957 eruption that gutted the lighthouse, buried a small village, and added about one mile of new shoreline to the island. Today, the area is a natural park, and there is a hiking trial to the rim of the dormant volcano. Meanwhile, the island of Pico (“Peak”) is the highest point in all of Portugal, built on volcanic explosions that are visible in the island’s wild landscapes, soaring peaks, and black cliffs that drop into the sea.  The climb up to the 7,700 foot summit can take up to three hours, and the views are worth it. On clear days, the peak can be seen from surrounding islands, with its lava cone rising above the massive volcano.

Whale-watching in the Azores is different than in the U.S. – often meaning a trip out to sea in a small semi-inflatable motorboat in search of the largest mammal on the planet.  Perhaps that’s why the islands were named one of the top ten sites on the planet for finding the marine giants.  Experienced guides offer insights into the lives of these creatures and, best of all, seeing a whale is almost guaranteed due to a system of  spotters along the local mountainsides who radio the boats with the position and number of whales.  Local whales include sperm whales, northern bottlenose, pilot, sowerby’s beaked whales, and occasionally orcas.

Bullfighting in Portugal is a festival of horsemanship, elegance, and drama – and unlike in Spain, the bull is not killed.  In a Portuguese bullfight a cavaleiro, or rider must place a dart into the bull, delivered by drawing the bull to a charge. Horse and bull then charge at each other, with the horse suddenly veering off to avoid an impact while the rider places a colorful dart exactly in the bull’s back muscle. Locals on the island of Terceira also enjoy an odd sport of tethered bullfighting from May to October, where visitors brave or foolish enough can go a few rounds with a bull on the city streets (imagine the running of the bulls meets bungie jumping).

2. OFF THE BEATEN PATH: Cycling, Hiking, Golf

From seacoasts to valleys, from gardens to forests, the Azores offers a unique range of landscapes to explore.  For those looking for something more active than lying on the beach all day, the islands can be slowly explored by bike, foot, or even golf cart.

Little-used country roads, mountain passes, and seaside roads lend themselves to visitors in search of sweeping mountain and ocean views, waterfalls, and volcanic lakes. Well-paved and graded roads make cycling a pleasure for any experience level. For the more adventurous, dirt backroads lead to hidden valleys, gardens, and tiny towns.

Altogether, there are some 800-plus species of plants on the islands – only 300 of them are native. Cedar trees, heather, ling, mountain grapes, white wood, ginger, dogwood and the tamujo bush are a few of the local species. The newcomers include the acacia tree, flowering hydrangea and azaleas, camellia, incense and other ornamental plants. Despite their proximity, each island has its own look, feel, and climate. And, the fauna can vary dramatically from island to island. 

Easy Rider Tours (www.easyridertours.com) of Newburyport, Mass., offers guided week-long cycling and walking tours of São Miguel Island, including everything from hikes up the island’s highest peak to routes exploring the rugged interior forests of Japanese cedars, big-leaf hydrangea, and wild ginger. On the sunny slopes of the north coast, the group will tour Europe’s only tea plantation, dating from 1883.

For those who prefer to measure their outside activities with a scorecard, the Azores offer three excellent golf courses, with the best found on the main island of São Miguel, operated by Verdegolf. The 1939 Furnas course (Par 72; Architect: MacKenzie Ross - nine holes, Cameron & Powell - nine holes) was the first in the Azores, and it combines the best of old world course design with mature plantings and sweeping fairways. The courses take advantage of vistas and natural features to offer a unique golfing experience.  At 1,700 feet above sea level, clouds passing through can present a fun challenge. The course is right outside the resort town of Furnas, with its gardens, spa, and hot springs.

The newer 27-hole Batalha course (a few miles outside of the main city of Ponta Delgada on São Miguel)  takes advantage of natural features to offer a distinctive golfing experience described as “one the world’s most intimate and exquisitely beautiful courses, given its mountain setting with sheltering forests and numerous elegant tree ferns,” by travel writer David Sayers.  The nearby island of Terceira also has a nine-hole course known as the Terceira Golf Club, popular with officers from the U.S. and NATO airbase on the island. A new course is also planned for the island of Pico.

3. FOOD & WINE: Seafood, Geysers, And Sweet Breads

The Azorean kitchen has a Portuguese base, but with a strong local flavor.  Each island brings to the table a touch of distinction, with Sao Miguel flavoring all food with hot pepper in the form of powder, salt or paste and Terceira specializing in Alcatra, a wine and spice soaked beef dish. 

One of the many benefits of living in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean is the myriad of local fish.  Limpets (a shellfish), croques (a small mollusk unique to the Azores), crayfish and rabbit stews are specialties. Fish chowders are rich and tasty, and the fresh catch of the day is featured at most eateries. The Portuguese staple of salted codfish is omnipresent here, and the island of Sao Miguel is famous for its stewed Octopus with garlic, onion, fragrant wine, chili pepper and paprika. And, the chicharro, a tasty small fish, deep-fried and served with a black eyed pea salad, is a local delicacy.

As for the land, the Azores offer fine local beef, heart of a bouillabaisse called Alcatra, most famous on the island of Terceira. Bacon fat, onions, garlic, cinnamon, peppercorn, vinegar, butter and white wine flavor the dish, served boiling hot accompanied by the famous Portuguese sweet bread, massa sovada.
 
Often served with the sweet breads before the meal are a variety of local cheeses, mostly made from cow’s milk.  While the island of São Miguel, Pico and Faial produce excellent cheeses, the sharp-flavored cheeses of São Jorge are famous throughout Europe.  Generally served with the cheese and bread on all the islands is an excellent fresh massa de pimenta, a pepper sauce.  All islands offer a fresh cheese, called queijo fresco, which is creamy and complex. To finish the meal there is a vast array of Azorean pastries and cakes, made with caramel, walnuts, cheese and especially pineapple. Little cheesecakes are the specialty on the island of Graciosa or in Vila Franca on São Miguel.

Pineapple hot houses are unique to the Azores, with the island of São Miguel boasting more than 6,000. Grown year-round, the local pineapple is quite different from any other, with a small crown and an intense flavor.  And while on Sao Miguel, stop for lunch at the posh Terra Nostra Garden Hotel, where chefs lift cozido – a six-hour, slow-cooked pork, beef and vegetable stew – right from a bubbling hot geyser on the banks of the thermal Furnas Lake.  If you're not a meat-eater, try the fish--it's always astoundingly fresh, thanks to the deep waters that surround the islands.

While there is no shortage of table wines from the mainland, fine wines, liqueurs and brandies are also distilled on the islands. Be sure to try the fine white wines grown in the lava-rich soil of Pico, they were once the wines of choice to the Czars of Russia in the 19th century. There are also excellent wines made on Graciosa, and along the north coast or Terceira in Biscoitos. Exotic fruits are made into liqueurs and powerful brandies.

4.REMOTE ROMANCE:  The Most Isolated & Enchanting Places In Europe

Depending on how you look at it, Europe either begins or ends here at the Western-most Azorean island of Flores, which, along with Corvo, forms the western group of islands of the archipelago.   It is believed that Flores was first discovered sometime between 1450 and 1452, but isolation marked the island's development and only with the construction of an airport in the 1960s did Flores develop a stronger connection to the outside world.

Today, the island lives on fishing, agriculture and blossoming tourism. Flores is a welcome escape from the modern world, with a slow pace that is hard to find anywhere else these days. The island is a mix of deep green forests, pastures, and fields. As the name suggests, Flores is always in bloom with wild flowers, including blue hydrangeas and wild cubres (a yellow bloom) grown on seaside cliffs. The landscape is rugged, with crater lakes and dramatic coastal cliffs. And, there are more crater lakes, waterfalls, and sea cliffs than any other island in the Atlantic.  The rocky coasts of Flores are dotted with tiny islands, some home to grazing sheep.

Corvo is an even more isolated, sparsely populated place. Named for a crow, it was the last of the archipelago to be settled. The island seems to swirl around a huge crater, some 500 feet deep. Corvo is home to just a few hundred people – all living in the seaside village of Vila Nova do Campo. There are no other towns. Corvo is mostly open hinterland (inviting for private hikes, and being at one with the sky and sea). Corvo was sighted around 1450, and settled by 1548.

The island’s isolation led to an interesting trading relationship with pirates, who where given supplies in exchange for protection. Many visitors now come to Corvo for its excellent scuba diving and fishing.  Others seek the beauty of its landscape, and the solitude of one of Europe’s most isolated places.

The small and hilly island of Graciosa was discovered in 1450. Soon, the island’s green fields were drawing people from throughout Portugal and Flanders. While Graciosa has not seen volcanic activity in some 500 years, the island has active geysers. Called the white island, there are low hills at the center of the island around a series of extinct volcano craters. Azoreans know Graciosa for its fine wines and brandy produced from Isabela grapes, for its Flemish-inspired windmills, for its famous cheese cakes, and for small craftshops producing handmade embroidery and linens.  {Above image, Hotel Terceira Mar, Angra.}