I'll apologize in advance for the length!
We flew from Boston to Terceira Island via Sao Miguel. We chose to spend our first four nights on Terceira, and the next six on Sao Miguel, so that there would be no intra-island flight on our travel home day. It was a longer day on the front end, but as it was an overnight flight, we might have had a wait at our hotel in the morning anyway, so it seemed like the right choice. SATA has direct flights from Boston to Sao Miguel, in less than 5 hours on the eastbound flight. After checking into our hotel, My Angra Charming House, we decided to walk around Angra do Heroísmo prior to dinner. A Unesco World Heritage Site, beautifully restored after a 1980 earthquake on the island, Angra is a true gem of a city. With cobblestone streets, beautifully decorated sidewalks, and flowers of all kinds, the city exudes a European charm that can't be denied.
Dinner was at a restaurant called Tasca das Tias, recommended by our host at the hotel. A beautiful meal and a glass of wine for our first evening was just the thing to encourage a good night's sleep.
On day 2, we walked to the nearby Jardim Duque da Terceira botanical garden. A lovely garden in the middle of town, crowned by the Outeiro da Memória monument hill, which provides a spectacular view over the city, the old fort, and out onto the sea. After a quick lunch, it was back to the hotel to change into comfortable clothes for an e-bike ride up Monte Brasil. The ride through the trails on the mountain was made much easier by the electric assist, and well worth the viewpoints from each side of the now dormant Monte Brasil. After our bike ride, we visited a cheese shop called Quejo Vacquina for a drink and a sampling of local cheeses. Dinner this evening was at Beira Mar, a seafood restaurant at the fishing port in nearby Sao Mateus. Of course, I had to try the limpets, or lapas, never having seen them before. They are in an open shell resembling an oyster or clay, but are actually a type of snail. The texture was a little tougher than a clam, and there was too much garlic and butter for the true flavor of the limpet itself to shine through. I followed the limpets with the most delicate grilled calamari I've ever tasted.
Day 3 proved to be a bit rainy and cloudy, so we opted for a drive around the west side of the island. We ran into a mystical forest somewhere around Santa Barbara, and drove up the mountain as far as the narrowing road allowed us to feel safe doing so. We traveled on to Biscoitos, and stopped at the natural rock pools on the coast. Since it was very windy and rainy, the visit wasn't terribly long, but the show that the waves crashing against the shore provided was a spectacular sight! We traveled on to the nearby Museu do Vinho dos Biscoitos. A walk around allowed us to see antique equipment used in the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. We took the recommendation of Luís and had lunch at the nearby O Caneta. Some folks we recognized told us that this restaurant was a beef restaurant, so we ordered the local specialty of Alcatra, slow roasted beef cooked with a spice blend in a clay pot. Resembling the best pot roast you’ve ever eaten, it was deliciously tender!
After a wonderful lunch we traveled on to Algar do Carvão, a volcanic chimney which descends 328 ft below the surface and opens up into a wide cave, with a clear rainwater fed lake at the bottom.