{"id":13750,"date":"2021-11-03T18:28:24","date_gmt":"2021-11-03T16:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ants-in-pants.com\/?p=13750"},"modified":"2021-11-03T18:28:24","modified_gmt":"2021-11-03T16:28:24","slug":"10-reasons-to-go-to-the-azores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ants-in-pants.com\/en\/blog\/10-reasons-to-go-to-the-azores\/","title":{"rendered":"10 reasons to Go to the Azores (Portugal)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Azores are just a stone throw from mainland Portugal (Lisbon<\/a><\/strong>), with very convenient and rather cheap TAP Portugal<\/a> airline flying there. In this post, we give you ten reasons why, as a traveler, one should not overlook Azores<\/a><\/strong> and visit them for sure!
\n1.\tThe Azores are a little Iceland<\/strong>, yet cheaper, and more comfortable to travel around.
\nAzores have the same amazing geothermal activity going on there, and is as green as Iceland is in summer, but much warmer (at any time of the year). So, you can bathe in hot springs and see fumaroles.
\nAzores<\/p>\n

\"fumaroles<\/p>\n

Imagine that this is a natural hot pool, just next to the ocean; it is hot enough and not wavy several hours a day, so you may chill there for free!
\n\"Azores<\/p>\n

2.\tThe Azores are also non-touristic Canary Islands<\/strong><\/a>: too many things reminded of Tenerife, except for no tourist crowds. In many ways, landscapes are similar, the weather is also changing, and you may enjoy multiple miradores<\/strong>\u2014scenic spots\u2014in both destinations.
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

\"ocean<\/p>\n

3.\tJust like in Tenerife, you may enjoy the view of ocean and cliffs<\/strong>. The ocean changes the color depending on the sun, and sometimes the ocean waves are so beautiful that you can watch them for hours.
\n\"miradores<\/p>\n

4.\tIn the Azores, enjoy agricultural tourism! Staying at local farms, visiting guided tours at cheese farms, pineapple and tea plantations are among many very affordable or sometimes free entertainment options!
\n\"pineapple<\/p>\n

\"tea<\/p>\n

5.\tThe main Azorean island, Sao Miguel, has several entertaining scientific centers<\/strong>, which are again very cheap to visit, but allow to learn a lot about volcanos, microbiology of geothermal areas, atmosphere, and science. They are truly interactive, for instance, in Observatory, you may bike to the Mercury (or any other planet), while in Expolab scientific center you may conduct experiments on your DNA!
\n\"scientific<\/p>\n

\"Expolab<\/p>\n

These scientific centers deserve a separate blog post, and we will certainly tell more about them.
\n6.\tJust like Portugal, the Azores are quite religious, and you may find a unique Catholic church<\/strong> in every Azorean town.
\n\"Church<\/p>\n

At the time of our visit, in December, every town was also decorated with nativity scenes: very different settings for each town.
\n\"nativity<\/p>\n

\"nativity<\/p>\n

7.\tIn Azores, make sure you also enjoy the local architecture<\/strong>, which is very different from that in Portugal. Every town has its own face:
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

You will enjoy walking around and looking at colorful houses, it is amazing what sense of color the locals have when painting their homes.
\n\"colourful<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t forget about mills and lighthouses: they are everywhere.
\n\"lighthouse<\/p>\n

There are rarer instances of architecture though, such as this abandoned aqueduct.
\n\"old<\/p>\n

8.\tWhile the Azores are not known for their special animals, the flora<\/strong> compensates it all. Amazing flowers of all colors, trees you have never seen, all set at the beautiful background of green fields or blue ocean.
\n\"Azores<\/p>\n

\"Azores<\/p>\n

\"Azores<\/p>\n

9.\tThe Azores offer amazing hiking trails<\/strong> of different levels of complexity and with varied surrounding landscape. If you want to hike all the trails in Sao Miguel island, you will need a month or so!
\n\"hiking<\/p>\n

\"hiking<\/p>\n

10.\tFruits, vegetables, cheese, wines\u2014it will be so difficult to go back home from Azores, as its food is amazing. However, Azorean specials are seafood and steaks<\/strong>, known to be extremely good. We will dedicate a separate blog post to the list of the best Sao Miguel restaurants we have visited.
\n\"seafood<\/p>\n

\"seafood<\/p>\n

And a bonus: if you happen to be as fond of planes as Victor is, the airport in Sao Miguel has a great strategic location for watching the planes you may look from different points.
\n\"TAP
\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Azores are just a stone throw from mainland Portugal (Lisbon), with very convenient and rather cheap TAP Portugal airline flying there. In this post, we give you ten reasons why, as a traveler, one should not overlook Azores and visit them for sure! 1. The Azores are a little Iceland, yet cheaper, and more comfortable to travel around. Azores…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[9,2926],"tags":[2684,1268,2786,2754,2903,2782,2846,1533],"class_list":["post-13750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-portugal","tag-architecture","tag-beaches","tag-culture","tag-ethnic-cuisine","tag-islands","tag-nature","tag-sea-and-oceans","tag-volcano"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ants-in-pants.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Azores-18DSC_3493.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9x48k-3zM","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ants-in-pants.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ants-in-pants.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ants-in-pants.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ants-in-pants.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ants-in-pants.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13750"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ants-in-pants.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13794,"href":"https:\/\/ants-in-pants.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13750\/revisions\/13794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ants-in-pants.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ants-in-pants.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ants-in-pants.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ants-in-pants.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}