Portugal

  • Netherlands,  Portugal,  Spain

    Back to the Netherlands

    Road to Sao Roque After a short stay in Piedade we biked to Sao Roque. Ofcourse we had some nice views. And who are we, not to show them to you. Sao Roque The trip to Sao Roque was hard, but it was the last long trip before our flight back to the Netherlands. In Sao Roque we walked around the town. It was just as lovely as the rest of the island. The last view of Pico was setteling in. Our last ride on our bikes we went down a road with a velocity of 50 kilometers a hour. That was fun. Return from Azores Our last flight in…

  • Portugal

    Lajes do Pico

    Road to Lajes do Pico On our way from Madalena to Lajes do Pico, we drove past the highest stratovolcano on the Azores and in Portugal. Its height is 2.351 meters. Just outside of Madalena we stopped because of the magnificent view. On one side we saw the volcano with some old vineyards and on the other side the ocean with a scenery of Horta in the distance. It was beautiful. We must have stayed there for half an hour. Pico island is a different island than Flores. Pico has more volcanic beaches and Flores has more high ground. They are both beautiful in there own way. Museum of the…

  • Portugal

    Arriving in Horta and Madalena

    Horta Luckily for us the flight to the island Faial was much calmer, then our flight to Flores. We still had to assemble our bikes before we went on to our next stay in Horta. The most beautiful thing we saw in these few days, was the coastline with the blue water bashing into the black rocks. We adored the weather because it was great and warm. Whale factory We know Horta for it’s whale watching. This used to be whale hunting. We went to a museum called Azores Ocean Observatory. This is an old factory where they pulled the whales inside a courtyard and cut them to peace’s. It’s…

  • Portugal

    Leaving Faja Grande

    Lakes Negra and Comprida We think Faja Grande is one of the most beautiful places we have seen in the Azores. With our bikes it was really hard to reach our goal to end up back in Santa Cruz. Flores is a small island, definitely worth visiting, but think twice when you want to visit it with bikes. On our way to Santa Cruz we wanted to see the lakes Caldeira Negra and Caldeira Comprida. Which we should have seen with the aborted walk from Faja Grande. It was very cold at 600 meters high, but the lakes were worth the climb. Leaving Flores We wanted to visit Corvo on…

  • Portugal

    Hiking along side the ocean

    First Hike On the first hike, after we arrived in Fajã Grande, we wanted to enjoy the ocean. So, we headed to the harbor and stayed there for a nice view. After that we walked to a church that we could see from the harbor. We went to the church and found the start of a trail behind the church. Ellen new there should be a trail going to the north side of the island, but she thought it was higher up the mountain. On the first corner of the trail, we stopped and turned around. We were on the way for a long time already and it was getting…

  • Portugal

    Magnificent Flores island

    Lajes das Flores From Santa Cruz we drove to Lajes a small town south of the island. Here we wanted to walk along one of the Unesco trails. After a three kilometer walk we arrived at the start of the trail which it went down the cliff. After a short period of time we found out that the trail was blocked by a tree that fell down. It left a pile of dirt on the trail which was to big to climb over. We decided to go back and go to an other viewpoint on which we saw a little of the Unesco sight we wanted to visit. Faja Grande…

  • Portugal

    Arriving in Santa Cruz das Flores

    Our flight Our flight left at the 29th of December from Sao Miguel to Flores. The flight was on time and we were lucky that it still went because of the wind. After our departure, we felt some turbulence which disappeared as soon as we were above the clouds. We focused on our Netflix series because we thought that the worst part was behind us. First we had to go to Terceira and Faial. We landed there without any problems. We had to make a transfer to get on the same plane with the new passengers. In our last landing on Flores we really started to understand the meaning of…

  • Portugal

    Random Christmas eve dinner

    Random dinner In the last blog we said that we would fly to Flores and this will happen at the 29th of December. In the meanwhile we strolled around in Ponta Delgada, having a great time. It’s been Christmas already and we had a very fun Christmas eve dinner. We went to Boca del Cena and expected a small but normal restaurant. On the internet we saw that is was runned by one man that does everything. When we made a reservation we heard that there was only lamb, codfish, octopus and turkey, which suites us fine. As we were waiting for the door to open, met three more people…

  • Portugal

    Vila do Franca and maybe bye Sao Miguel

    Vila do Franca After Furnas we biked to the city Vila do Franca, because we wanted to go do some whale watching. Sadly because of the weather it was canceled and we walked to a church instead. As you do. This church itself was nice, but the view was even better. We stayed here for more than a hour, just to watch. Ponta Delgada We arrived back in de main city of Sao Miguel, Ponta Delgada. Our idea is to celebrate Christmas here, then fly over to Flores at the 27th of December and celebrate New Year there. The flight to Flores was canceled because of the wind. We had…

  • Portugal

    Hot springs in Furnas

    Lagoa las furnas Visiting a lake never gets old for us. This time it was the lake Lagoa das Furnas. As we walked around it we saw a lot of nature and at the edge of the lake there’s an old church which looks like it’s neglected, but really interesting. Terra Nostra Hot springs Furnas is famous of Terra Nostra park. This park has a lot of exotic plants, we liked it even in the winter. The entrance fee was super cheap. It was only eight euro’s per person. The main attraction of this park is the hot spring. We liked it a lot. The thermal water in the main…

  • Portugal

    Nordeste, Povoação and Furnas

    Bye beautiful Nordeste We think that the roughest nature of this island is in Nordeste. Nordeste has some nice cliffs and views looking over the ocean. The first part, to our new location in Povoação, was really hard to climb. The next day or even the next hour we forgot about the climb. Loving it. Povoação As we arrived in Povoação, there was a long downhill road. We had to use our brakes so much, that our hand muscles became sore. In Povoação we saw a lot of houses with chrismas lights, the ones you normally see in America. We went to a beach that existed out of black stones…

  • Portugal

    Goodbye Ribiera Grande and hello Ville da Nordeste

    Biking 50 kilometers When we left Ribiera Grande, we were prepared for a bike ride of 33 kilometers. Ofcourse, you are already guessing it, it turned out to be something very different. The first bike ride to Sete Cidades was the hardest one till now and we did ok. So we started the next ride with a lot of faith. When we wanted to ride over the main road, we noticed some signs saying that we could not go there (thank you Google maps). This went on for a few times and 33 kilometers turned into 50. At our last break it started to go dark and we were still…

  • Portugal

    Lagoa do Fogo and Lombadas

    Ribiera Grande The road at the coast of the island is quite flat. So it was easy to ride and enjoy the view to our next place Ribiera Grande. In Ribiera Grande we had a house that was small, but it was one of the better houses we had. We stayed here for six nights before we went on. Lombadas In that time we visit a few places that were in the middle of the island, ofcourse. We went to Lombadas at first, which was a very hard climb. But in the end we arrived at a nice valley where we could rest for a while and enjoy the scenery.…

  • Portugal

    Up and Over

    We left Sete Cidades after spending three days in the caldeira. The wind was pretty strong and during the nights we had the feeling our little cabin would be blown apart. Luckily for us when it was time to bike again the wind was quiet once again. We climbed out of the caldeira and went pretty much downhill along the coast towards our next destination, where we would spend two nights in a small house next to an old windmill. The scenery along the way was great and we took our time to soak it all in. The single day we were in the old mill house, we did not…

  • Portugal

    The beauty of Sete Cidades

    Made our way to Sete Cidades After we left Ponta Delgada we rode to Sete Cidades. We wanted to take the road that had the most sightseeing spots. Little did we know that that road was an 15 km uphill climb. As we did our best to get to our final destination of that day, we saw some beautiful things along side of the road. The most impressive thing we saw was an abandoned hotel on the top of a mountain, with a beautiful side. After the climb we were relieved to see some downhill road and we enjoyed it very much. Sete Cidades One day resting from climbing with…

  • Portugal

    The start of our trip in the Azores, Portugal

    Travel day One of the things we love while traveling is the days we just can sit down and relax before catching our flight. This time it was a little bit different. We had to make our bicycles travel ready and put them into cardboard boxes. Which was a lot of work. After that we made our way into the airplane to Lisbon (Portugal). As we arrived in Lisbon the first thing we looked for was a lounge. We had a layover of eight hours. This was the part we loved the most. The lounge itself was cheap and had a lot of food and drinks. After those eight hours…