Discover the old ways of Europe’s ‘wild west’ islands
With more than 500 miles of waymarked trails lacing the Azores, there are few finer ways to explore this island chain than on foot, finds Estella Shardlow
I was wandering through a labyrinth of black basalt, fingertips trailing along walls laced with electric-green lichen, boots crunching over rubble as dark as coal. The landscape in Pico, one of nine islands that makes up the Azores, is otherworldly, austere – and increasingly attractive to curious walkers looking to plunge into the past of Portugal’s remote North Atlantic archipelago.
Walking single file is often essential; Pico’s old pathways only needed to be wide enough for cattle being driven to pasture, or goods-laden mules and ox carts heading between the wave-lashed coast and remote communities in its volcanic interior. Through the sea mist, I followed the bobbing ponytail of Inês Neto, a guide with Futurismo Azores Adventures (futurismo.pt). Her voice drifted back on the briny breeze: “This island’s history can really be summed up by the two ‘W’s: winemaking and whaling. And when you go hiking here, you’re essentially heading back in time.”
Our walk – the five-mile Vinhas da Criação Velha – was testament to this – weaving through the honeycomb of drystone walls unfurling over Pico’s northern and eastern edges. They’re perhaps the strangest vineyards on earth. Eking out a tough existence here in the late 15th century, some 1,000 miles from mainland Europe, the first Portuguese planted vines straight into rock crevices and created these stone structures – called currais – to shield grapes from the elements.
“Pico’s currais are one of humankind’s biggest constructions; if stretched out, they would wrap around the equator twice,” explained Filipe Rocha, co-founder of Azores Wine Company (antoniomacanita.com), which restored more than 100 hectares of these Unesco-listed vineyards. A sleek, low-slung structure of concrete and glass – housing a winery, restaurant and hotel – it’s the most luxurious place on the island to bed down after a day’s hiking and sample the local volcanic whites – mineral, saline and subtly smoky.
The next day, as Inês and I struck out onto the coast-hugging route from Santana to Lajido, she pointed out further evidence of Pico’s hardy forebears. “We call these rola-pipas,” she pointed to deep ruts carved into the basalt. “Where wine barrels were rolled down to the boats.”
Perched above the jagged cliffs are vigia – lookout towers used by whalers – while tide-wells dotting the shore show how islanders gathered rainwater to drink.
Pico’s lava fields (lajido in Portuguese) wind the clock back further still. The volcanic eruptions that formed this dramatic landscape are writ large in the swirling, ridged patterns of its jet-black rock – as if the magma had only recently cooled – and the towering, omnipresent cone of Mount Pico. The Donkey Trail (O Caminho dos Burros) – which slices through the rugged interior and once provided a lifeline between villages on the north and south coasts – passes high-altitude crater lakes, ringed with endemic varieties of juniper and blueberry, Mediterranean spurge and old-growth laurissilva forest.
Hiking trails are by no means the preserve of Pico; six of its Azorean neighbours offer multiday “grand routes” of 20-plus miles, as well as easier (but equally scenic) strolls, looping around hot springs or meandering along hydrangea-stuffed country lanes past curious cattle.
Across the archipelago, some 80 trade and pilgrimage routes have been recently restored by Walking Trails in the Azores, with distinctive red and yellow signposts showing the way – so, if ever there were a time to plan a visit and explore these charming, storied routes, it’s now.