Editor’s note: this is Morgan’s fourth (!!!) island of the Azores she is sharing with us. Links to the others can be found throughout this piece. Don’t miss out on the rest of it if you enjoy cool volcanic island scenery! For more of Morgan’s writing, click here to visit her index page.
When taking a visit to Portugal’s nine Açores Islands (Anglicized spelling Azores), don’t skip Faial, especially if you’re a geology or volcanology buff. Faial’s natural heritage is stunning: caves that can only be seen by boat, quiet trails lined with sugarcane for horseback riding, and, most striking, a relatively brand-new section of land from a recent eruption.
Reach Faial by flying into Horta airport or taking the ferry from another island such as São Miguel, São Jorge, or Terceira. If taking the ferry, be aware that the schedules are seasonal and that weather can seriously impact your travel plans, as it did for my trip to São Jorge! Seeing some of the subsequent ferries shoved around by large waves – way too close to the marina’s retaining wall for my comfort – made us grateful that they stop running ferries when the weather is particularly unpredictable. If flying between the islands, you might find that you’ve got the option for a long layover in Horta (Faial), but I believe that layover isn’t enough time. I’d recommend at least a few days on Faial to experience its gems. And do keep in mind the seasonal nature of all the Açores – many services are less available or less predictable in the quiet season, but the upside is you’ll also have unique opportunities to explore with nobody else around – such as a black sand beach completely to yourself.
Off-Season Benefits in Horta
Horta is the largest town on Faial, with the roughly 15,000 inhabitants making up half the population of the island. Horta hosts some incredible seafood and comfy tapas spots as well as a hotel/restaurant inside a 17th-century fort (closed in the off-season). But don’t get me wrong: Horta is small enough that we somehow ended up renting a place right next door to a family friend!
In Horta you’ll also find services like Naturalist, which is a science and tourism company run by researchers affiliated with several Portuguese universities. I adore this type of company, because the team is knowledgeable and committed to conservation; they actively address concerns about the impact of activities like whale watching on the natural populations and use every one of their trips to report data. The research they engage in is also being actively used to try to stop ocean floor mining. The boat tour we took ended up being just us plus the naturalist team – thanks to it being the quiet season – and we essentially walked into the office and had a boat with enthusiastic researchers ready to go within 10 minutes of our arrival. Unfortunately, their resident geology expert wasn’t available for our particular time slot since it was so last-minute, but the researchers who took us out still knew quite a bit. They shared about how Pico and Faial connect across the seafloor, about the presence of an underwater mountain between Faial and São Jorge, and about how these areas tend to have the highest biodiversity. These seamount areas, according to the researchers, are good habitats for hungry whales because there’s so much food. Being able to slowly slosh our boat into the quiet coastal caves, which aren’t accessible any other way, with biologists running the show and pointing out various species along the walls, felt like such an intimate gift.
The boat ride paused at some nearly-submerged circular formations almost like natural pools: three Faial volcanoes that can only be seen from the water. Further out, we spotted the striking pure white island walls of a place called Moro Castelo Branco. The white cliffs formed as pumice and ash from an eruption about 3000 years ago. The biologists were delighted to share with us about the local rock pigeons and follow a pod of dolphins on our way back to Horta.
Another Faial adventure involved meandering a rented scooter around the coast and higher in altitude to a casual lunch at a near-empty restaurant with only a couple locals inside. Our scooter adventure stopped at viewpoints (or miradouros) along the way that unfolded majestic scenery of the farmland on one side and the ocean on the other, ending at an ecolodge with horseback riding. Once again the only people around, we ended up alone with our riding guide. This enabled us to do some things normally not accessible on a group ride, like cantering along certain straight parts of the path – though my horse was less interested in cantering than in munching on sugar cane along our route, and who was I to stop her?
Mars – I Mean Capelinhos
The absolute showstopper on this island, though, is definitely the area called Capelinhos. It’s the newest land area in Portugal, having been created in the 1950s – which means there are photographs of the eruption that added this land mass.
Imagine suddenly seeing the ocean water begin to boil and lava bubbles floating to the surface. That’s how the first indications of the eruption happened; underwater eruptions caused the lava to cool quickly, creating what’s known as pillow lava, which floats.
Shortly after the pillow lava started emerging, ash spewed into the air and began coating a large chunk of Faial, damaging homes and businesses. As the ash and explosions continued, a new island emerged next to Faial. Further eruptions over a total timespan of 13 months created a land bridge between Faial and the new island and eventually creating a completely new section of Faial, also partially burying the area’s lighthouse.
The area now houses an incredible museum where visitors can learn about volcanism, not just in the Açores, but around the world. Crunching and sliding your way across this ashy landscape truly feels like being on another planet, and realizing you’re standing on land less than 70 years old feels unreal in its own way.
Faial’s unique geological story and peaceful landscape make it one of my favorite Azorean islands to visit.
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