Faial is an island in the central group of the Azores, called the "blue island" for the hydrangea hedges that colour it in summer. Its only municipality, Horta, is a small town on a bay facing the mighty volcano of Pico island, just six kilometres away.
The marina and Peter Café Sport
Horta marina is one of the most famous in the world among sailors: it is the stopover for those crossing the Atlantic under sail between Europe and the Caribbean. Tradition has it that every crew leaves a painting on the quays and jetties, with the boat's name, the year and a design, for luck on the voyage: there are thousands, turning the harbour into an open-air museum. Opposite is Peter Café Sport, a bar founded in 1918, a meeting place for sailors from all over the world, famous for its gin and tonic and its small scrimshaw museum, the art of engraving sperm whale teeth.
The town
Horta was also an important hub of transatlantic communications: from the late nineteenth century submarine telegraph cables between Europe and America came ashore here, and in the 1930s seaplanes stopped over. The centre has Baroque churches, the Horta museum and, to the south, the bay of Porto Pim, with a lovely beach and the old whaling factory, now a museum. Above the bay, Monte da Guia is an old volcanic cone with a viewpoint.
The Caldeira and Capelinhos
In the middle of the island opens the Caldeira, a huge crater about two kilometres wide and some 400 metres deep, covered in vegetation, which you can walk around on a rim trail. At the western tip, the Capelinhos volcano erupted in 1957-1958, adding new land to the island and burying villages under ash: thousands of islanders emigrated to the United States under a special law. Today the lunar landscape, with the old half-buried lighthouse, houses an underground interpretation centre on volcanoes, one of the best in Portugal.
Getting there
Faial has an airport with flights from Lisbon and other islands. Frequent ferries run from Horta to Madalena on Pico (about 30 minutes) and, in summer, to São Jorge and other islands of the central group.