Corvo Island, Azores

We had our alarms set for 3:30am to catch our 6am flight to the Azores. We had arrived at the hotel at 2am yesterday, so we paid for two nights but were only in the hotel for 26 hours :(

Caught our scheduled Bolt at 4am, got to the airport and checked in. The TAP check-in was a zoo; we were flying Azores Airlines which had no one in line. We also had Fast Track on our tickets so skipped the security lineups too. It was almost like we were flying business!

We slept through most of the 2.5 hour flight to San Miguel. We had a 45 minute layover during which we had our 2nd cappuccino of the day.

Then we took a small 48-seater to Horta, on the island of Faial. We visited Faial on our 2019 trip and really liked it. Our visit this time was much shorter, just 20 minutes while the plane refueled. The passengers on the right side of the plane had an amazing view of Faial on the approach to Horta. We were on the left side, seats 6A and 6B. The person in the window seat on the right side (6D) had videoed the approach, and I asked him after if he could share it. He airdropped it to me, I’ve posted it unlisted on YouTube.

There were only about ten of us on the flight to Corvo. It’s a small island, population 435, and has only one hotel with about 16 rooms. There’s also a few bnb’s, but overall there’s not much accommodation for tourists. Most tourists visit as a day trip from nearby Flores Island, a 21km ferry.

I had wanted a pic of the approach to Corvo, as it’s quite stunning with the little town of Vila do Corvo on a fajã. But we flew on a direct approach without a fly-by, so there were no pics to be had from either side of the plane.

It started raining as we deplaned. By the time we got our luggage, it had turned into a downpour. We all dug into our packs to find our raincoats.

There’s no taxis (it’s a small island). We waited for the rain to slow down, and then walked out from the airport towards our hotel. It’s only a nine-minute walk, which wouldn’t have been a big deal if it wasn’t raining.

By the time we reached the hotel, it was sunny again, typical of island weather. We were able to check in (it was only 11am).

We ventured out for lunch. There’s only one place in town open for lunch, the BBC restaurant (nothing to do with British TV). We had their special, beans and chorizo with rice, which was excellent. We had an espresso after to keep us awake. (There's also a buffet restaurant near the airport that's open for lunch, but it gets only a 3.9 on Google Maps).

It had turned into a beautiful day. All the locals we spoke with said we should visit the caldera today, as the next few days the weather was turning and it would be unlikely we’d seen anything cause the caldera would be covered with clouds.

So we changed into our hiking gear and packed for three seasons - cold, rain, and heat.

It’s about 700m elevation gain from sea level to the entrance to the caldera. It took us about 2.5 hours to walk up cause it’s super photogenic and we stopped a lot for pics. It might have been a 1.5 walk if we didn’t stop.

There’s beautiful views of rock-terraced farmland and the ocean and old basalt buldings and green fields and blue sky. There’s even an old chapel built into the hill, and new wind turbines too. We did go through all the variations of clothing along the way.

We reached the top, already impressed by the views on the way up, and then had a look into the caldera. This was even more impressive, the best caldera I’ve seen. It’s possible to walk down and around the inside, but for us, the view was the thing. We sat on a rock and just took in the view for about half an hour.

The walk down was beautiful too, but not so nice on our knees and ankles. We were a bit sore by the time we reached our hotel. Probably, we’ll be even worse tomorrow.

We had dinner at Restaurante Irmãos Metralha. I had emailed them a week ago to pre-order, as you can’t just show up for dinner (they buy the ingredients on a just-in-time basis).

Dinner was excellent, two types of fish, blackspot sea bream and veja. Both were cooked and seasoned perfectly. We chatted with the owner, he was really friendly and genuine.

It was a long day and we weren’t expecting to see the caldera today, but you have to take advantage of the weather when it’s nice.