Roadtrip to Terceira Island

We flew from Lisbon to Lajes with Ryanair. Already in the first moments after having arrived, I had the feeling to be in a special place. Straight after landing, we looked for a car rental. There are many at the arrivals. We chose ilha9, which didn't ask for any deposit and neither for credit card.

We started our trip by car and headed to Biscoitos. A famous location with natural pools on the ocean and we spent there the whole morning and lunchtime. We bought some fresh fruit at a farmer's market there.

An Imperio do Espirito Santo (little chapel) along the road.

A viewpoint between Biscoitos and Ponta do Queimado

This viewpoint was the most amazing place on the island for me. It is sooo beautiful and also a perfect spot for photos (especially at the dawn). This place is literally heaven on earth!

We chose to visit "algar do Carvão" (there is actually a Combi-Ticket for gruta+algar but we bought only tickets for Algar for about 8€). Algar do Carvão is a cone of a volcano. And you can go inside there! How cool is that?! I swear it's an amazing and impressive experience. You can't miss it!

This "Furnas" are fumaroles that testify the intense vulcanic activity of this island. The Azores are in fact volcanic islands. This natural park is free and you can walk around the fumaroles.

After a long day, we arrived at out guest house in Angra do Heroismo. Angra and Praia da Vitoria are basically the only places with a great choice of Airbnbs, hotels etc. This guesthouse was located in the centre, it was cheap, clean and had everything you needed. There was even a kitchen with coffee machine and microwave. After taking a shower, we went eating at a local pub and walked around the streets of Angra.

We woke up pretty late and decided to go by car up to Monte Brasil to have breakfast with a view. You can also hike up there, nevertheless I would recommend to reach the parking lot on the mountain by car and hike around there to some view points

There is a cat colony on Monte Brasil! 🥺🐱

After Monte Brasil we headed back to the city centre and went to the beach, where there are some stands for "sea activities" like whale watching, snorkeling, boat trips etc. We booked the snorkeling tour and whale watching. Then we went around Angra do Heroismo.

On the same day we did snorkeling with the company "water4fun". We were lucky and saw a loooooot of dolphins 😍 Personally, I highly recommend the company water4fun. They have the best boat (with see-through glass) and very competent price and staff.

We did something crazy: tried to sleep outside! We got up to a small mountain by car and stayed there. From this miradouro (viewpoint) we were supposed to see the sunrise. Little problem: it had just rained and it was soo humid that a lot of mosquitoes had gathered there, just to sting us😭. After being stang all night long, we moved to this beautiful viewpoint "Miradouro do Facho", which is just above "Praia da Vitoria". This miradouro is special because from there you can see the sunrise on the sea. There is a huge parking lot, and also a very photogenic swing. We loooved this place!

This "imperios" are little chapels built between the colonial age and the 20th century. Some are still used nowadays. Originally, they were chapels dedicated to the holy spirit. Most of them are for free, some others not. In my opinion, they are more beautiful from the outside than from the inside, so there is no need to pay the entrance fee. You will find a lot of Emperios around the island, but this is definitely the most famous one (but not necessarily the nicest).

We decided to go back to the place where we tried to sleep. By daylight, it was simply amazing. From this miradouro, you can see almost half of the island🤭. It's really worth it. The only problem is, that the weather there it's almost always cloudy. If you are patient, you can also choose to wait until the clouds are gone (sometimes it can happen very fast, the weather on the Azores changes super fast)

We decided to do a hike. A guy from there recommended that we did "Trilho dos Misterios Negros", which translates to "hike of black misteries". How spooky is that?👻 You need to go to the starting point by car and then continue on foot. Everything is sooo well marked on the maps! It's really impressive.

Look on Google for the PDF of this hike. There you will find the path to follow, the starting point and everything you need. Take some time to get lost in the forest. Appreciate the beauty of this unspoiled nature. This place is just magical. We were so amazed by this hike, that I cannot even put it into words! You just have to go there!

When we came back, we remembered that in the past days we had bought a pineapple 🍍 from the Azores (not from Terceira tho). It was about to rotten, so we had to find a way to eat it. Luckily a bus driver saw us struggling to open it, and lent us a knife. I swear I haven't tasted such a great pineapple in my whole life. It was just undescribable 🤯 Add it to your bucket list of things you should try before you die👻 "Trilho Misterios Negros" starts very close to "gruta do natal", a volcanic grotto which we didn't have time to visit.

After the hike we decided to go to the beach, where the weather was amazing. "Quatro Ribeiras" is a place with amazing natural pools on the ocean. It's a quiet place where you can swim, relax and enjoy the sun. There is no sand of course, just rocks but we liked it a lot. There is also a lifeguard, so it's quite a safe place to go to.

After relaxing for a few hours, we took the car and headed back to Angra to our beloved "Guesthouse Brivaldo". But: we couldn't go back as the whole village of São Sebastião was blocked because of this tradition. If you are lucky, and you go to Terceira between May and October, you will probably bump into this "tourada a corda". Just look at the video to find out what it is! We decided to "join the party" and had a beer there with some local people. They even invited us to their garden to watch the show 😆

After having a shower, we went eating at this nice restaurant close to our guesthouse. I tried tuna, which is also a typical dish from the Azores. We also had some fried things, similar to the Spanish croquetas which were really good. If you go to this restaurant, you have to be quite patient. They take it all very easy and slowly 🤭 but it's worth the effort, I promise.

New day, new experiences! We woke up pretty early, had breakfast and went to the meeting point of water4fun to do the whale watching excursion we had previously booked by them 🐳

We were quite lucky and saw 4/5 whales. Actually, I was expecting to see their whole body, or at least a greater part, but we were only able to spot the fins or the mouth. The guide explained to us, that you can only see their tail if they are hunting. Otherwise, you will only spot like 10% of their body. It's even difficult to get an idea of how huge this animals are. Personally, we liked the snorkeling better than the whale watching. We think whale watching to be quite overrated, and it's also super expensive, while snorkeling is not. We were also able to see a lot more dolphins during the snorkeling then when we did whale watching (we were just lucky with the snorkeling tho. This is not always the case).

In the afternoon, we did another hike "Rocha do Chambre". We loved this one too, even though it's quite hard and the floor is muddy and slippery. We arrived at the top right when the weather was really bad, so we couldn't enjoy the most beautiful viewpoint :( Tip: go there in the morning. The weather tends to be better than in the afternoon. I took some amazing pictures anyways 😊

After the hike, it was already quite late, so we decided to go to our favourite spot on the island to see the sunset. From Ponta do Queimado, you can even spot São Jorge, another island of the Azores archipelago. We had some food and drinks with us, so we ate there while enjoying the last sunset on the island. We stayed there until it was really dark. We were alone and we could see soo many stars. I had never seen such a beautiful sky in my life. All of a sudden, we started hearing really weird noises. At the beginning we got super scared and the other couple who was there as well, just ran away and never came back🤣 After understanding that the sound came from birds, we could even be able to enjoy that and had to laugh every time we heard them.

After stargazing, we went to moradia da Graça, a guesthouse in Praia da Vitoria. We chose to stay there, as we wanted to see the sunrise one more time and this is only possible on the side of Praia da Vitoria (or on Monte Brasil). The guesthouse was okay, a bit old-style.

Last day in Terceira :(( After looking at the sunrise, we went to do this hike along the seaside (trilhos dos Fortes de São Sebastião) The hike was very interesting. It was really wild and you could tell that barely anyone had been there in a while. It was longer than we thought and, since we didn't have much time left, we decided to stop at the highest spot, eat some sandwiches and head back to the car.

The hike was very different from the others and we enjoyed the amazing views on the sea. I wouldn't recommend it though, because the trail was in very poor conditions and the path was not as well marked as the other trails we did. If you are looking for an interesting adventure, this might be the place you are looking for. Ps: we even stepped in cow poop💩 and our shoes got stuck in this huge field of poop 😭😂

After the hike, we went for our last bath in the ocean. We found some little friends, enjoyed their company for a while and let them go again in the ocean 🌊👋

From the natural pools we could hear a lot of noises, we were curious and went to the village nextdoor, to find out there was another 'tourada a corda'. We spent out last moments in Terceira enjoying life with some locals and headed back to the airport.

We left our car at the arrivals and took the plane from Lajes to Lisbon. This was definitely my favourite trip so far! Obrigada, Terceira! ♥️🌊