THE INCREDIBLE HULK

Of all the sights and experiences awaiting you on Sao Miguel, the most startling is the Monte Palace. Today, the concrete hulk resembles a wrecked barracks from Kabul or Baghdad, rapidly acquiring camouflage as nature reclaims it. But clamber through the foliage that is slowly strangling the structure and you see that this was once a hotel. Portugal’s finest, in fact, according to the award it collected within a year of opening in the mid1990s. But with access to the island so tricky, the investors’ dream of creating a luxury resort soon crumbled. In the same week that it picked up the prize, the Monte Palace closed down – permanently, as it turned out.

The new tourism boom has arrived too late to save the Monte Palace. The five-star property has become as extinct as the volcano on whose rim it perches so majestically – a macabre add-on to tours of Sete Cidades, a spectacular confusion of craters at the far west of the island. Elsewhere on Sao Miguel, though, hibernating hotels are being brought back to life.

At Furnas, where the ground seethes with volcanic hyperactivity, the spa hotel reopened the very week that Ryanair started flying.

In Ponta Delgada I was puzzled to find a once-proud ocean-front mansion, that was created by a Boston millionaire, all locked up and empty. The handsome basalt building has a terrace with perfect views of the harbour and the Atlantic.

A 2001 guidebook revealed this was once the city’s top hotel.

One day soon, it will shine again – despite the efforts of the tourist board to distract us from exactly how cheap and easy it is to reach this wonderful old island. – The Independent