Boutique Hotels in Azores

Nine islands make up the Azores, in three groups, and most first visits begin with São Miguel — the largest and most varied, and the one with the international airport, the best hotels and the headline sights. Its crater lakes at Sete Cidades and Lagoa do Fogo, the geothermal valley of Furnas, the tea plantations and the whale-watching make it a full trip in itself, and for many travellers it is the whole of the Azores they see.

Beyond it, the archipelago opens up for the island-hopper. Pico is dominated by its namesake volcano, Portugal's highest peak, and ringed by the black-lava vineyards that hold UNESCO World Heritage status; neighbouring Faial has its yacht-harbour town of Horta and a moonscape volcanic caldera; Terceira holds the handsome UNESCO old town of Angra do Heroísmo. The remote western pair, Flores and Corvo, are the wildest and greenest of all. Short flights and ferries link them, but distances and weather mean island-hopping suits time and a flexible plan.

The Azores are made for the outdoors. The walking is the heart of it — trails around the crater lakes of Sete Cidades and Lagoa do Fogo, the climb up Pico, coastal paths and old irrigation routes through the green interior. The sea is the other half: the waters here are among the best in the Atlantic for whale and dolphin watching, with resident and migrating species year-round, and the diving and snorkelling — off the Vila Franca islet, a flooded crater near São Miguel — are exceptional.

Then there is the geothermal life of the islands. At Furnas, on São Miguel, cooks bury pots of cozido stew in the volcanically heated ground in the morning and dig them out, slow-cooked by the earth, at lunch; the same valley has hot springs and mineral pools to bathe in. The food beyond it is honest and island-bound — fresh Atlantic fish and shellfish, beef from green pastures, island cheeses, pineapples grown under glass, and the volcanic white wines of Pico. It is a destination of doing and eating rather than lying still.

The Azores have a mild, oceanic climate with no real extremes — and changeable weather year-round, four seasons in a day being the local truth. Summer, June to September, is the most reliable: the warmest, driest months, the best for hiking, swimming and boat trips, and the peak of the whale-watching and the island festivals, though even then a shower is never far off. Spring and autumn are green, quiet and often lovely, with the hydrangeas at their height around June. Winter is mild but wet and windy, the sea dramatic and the islands at their emptiest. Pack for rain whenever you come; the green is rain-made, and the weather is part of the place rather than a flaw in it.