Discover Pico Island - Hiking, Sightseeing and More

The arrival day is reserved with free time to explore on your own. Transfer not included.

If you like wine and wonder why Pico’s wine culture is so special that its landscape was classified UNESCO Heritage, come with us on this “all about wine” tour. After the pick up in Madalena, we will start with a walk through the vineyards of Criação Velha. There, we cannot only witness the special characteristics and beauty of Pico’s wine landscape but also understand how much work is involved to create it.  Not only the vineyards are part of the patrimony, but also the built centers of typical adegas (wine cellars). Let’s discover one of these apparently abandoned places and taste the local table wine next to the ocean. We will then visit the regional wine laboratory where it is possible to make an analysis of the wine’s physical and chemical composition, as well as a professional wine tasting with their winemaking engineer. This step of our trip is dependent on the laboratory’s availability. But don’t worry, if there is no possibility to visit it, we alternatively might pay a visit to the beautiful wine museum and its impressive garden of dragon trees.

After lunch in a local restaurant, we will go to São Roque on the North Coast. On the way, we will pass the former wine production places Cachorro and Lajido, discovering other features that can be referred to the golden wine age that lasted over 200 years, such as little ports, tidal wells, distilleries and much more.

We will end the tour in the best possible way in an adega of a local producer, tasting the finest wines from Pico: the famous « liquorous » white wine, a very strong wine, that once brought great economic success to the island. Depending on the availability of the cellars, we will go to Czar or Buraca cellars.

This trail is taking you through a wide range of landscapes, through a famous area where the liquorous

Pico wine was once produced. Lajido is one of the oldest wine production places and due to the good preservation of the place with its many little adegas (wine cellars), manor houses and evidences related to the golden wine age, we can say that it is an authentic open air museum.

After the pick up in Madalena, we are ready to go on this interesting trip which will teach you so much about Pico island and its wine culture. The trail leads through the landscape of the vineyards, which are part of the UNESCO World Heritage, but also through dense vegetation, along pastures and over stone paths marked by the constant passage of ox carts. Once in Lajido, we will have the chance to taste the traditional Pico wine.

The original wines from Pico are white with a high alcohol graduation (liquorous wines), made from three noble grape varieties: Verdelho, Azorean Arinto and Pico’s Terrantez; Verdelho being the most common one.

Due to the volcanic ground and special arrangement of vineyards, we obtain grapes with a high content of sugar and a wine of an equilibrated acidity and high minerality. 

Pico has been producing wine since the 15th century, some years after the first settlers came. After this cultural hike and delicious wine tasting, we will go back to Madalena to drop you off.

Lying in the middle of the mystical Atlantic Ocean, the wonderful Azores islands are a permanent home or point of passage for more than a third of the entire world’s whale and dolphin species. Dive into this lifetime adventure with ancestral creatures where science and emotion come together at their highest level! This may be the best place on earth to observe these magnificent animals. 

After the check-in, you will be directed to the boat where our marine biologists will give a briefing. They will tell you about the species that you might see, whale watching history in the Azores as well as how we respect the animals. Then, we are ready to navigate and look for cetaceans in the wild. On the way, have a look at the coast of our beautiful island, full of magical landscapes.

Prepare for awe-inspiring moments where time suddenly freezes and natural magic happens right in front of your eyes. This experience has the duration of 3 hours.  

This trip will take you to one of the trails with the most diverse landscapes. We will begin within the natural reserve of Mistério da Prainha with pastures on one side and lush endemic vegetation on the other side along with geological formations. The trail ends in Baía de Canas, showing wine cellars, where Verdelho wine was once produced. The « Caminho dos Burros » used to be a linear donkey trail connecting the northern side of Pico island to the South. It will take about 3.5 hours to complete the 9.5km long hiking trail. 

On this hike, we will wander along the northern part of the track. Our hiking tour starts next to Caminho das Lagoas in the central highlands at about 830 meters of altitude and goes down towards the North Coast. 

The landscapes that we will explore throughout the trail are the consequence of lava flows from the historical eruption of 1562-64 (the longest eruption in the Azores history after the settlement). Passing by ancient volcanic cones, pastures and forests, we will learn about local flora and fauna.  After having a picnic lunch in Prainha forest park, we will go down the last part through dense vegetation and abandoned vineyards to Baía das Canas, where we will have the opportunity to go for a swim in the clear blue ocean to end this day in a cool way.

On Pico’s central plateau, there are more than 200 volcanic cones and many lakes and ponds representing rare biotopes. In this relatively remote area, we can find a high level of biodiversity and still appreciate the variety of endemic flora. We will also enjoy the most beautiful views over the ocean

and the surrounding islands. There, we will be able to enjoy Pico’s nature at its best and experience the volcanic origin of the island. 

We will first pick you up in Madalena for this incredible full-day adventure. During the tour, we will discover Pico’s “mysteries", and visit beautiful little lakes and several viewpoints. We will pass by Pico da Urze, a volcano offering a wonderful panorama over Pico mountain and by the volcanic complex of the island’s eastern part. In the afternoon, after a picnic lunch the adventure continues. Provided with helmets and flashlights, we will join a guided tour through Portugal’s longest lava tube: Gruta das Torres, being 5,150m long (3,2 miles). This tube exists for about 1,500 years and was created during an eruption coming from Cabeço Bravo. The guided tour to the cave lasts about 1 hour, during which you will be able to observe different geological formations such as stalactites, stalagmites, side benches, lava balls, and so much more.

Once back at the surface, we will drop you off back in Madalena after this long day full of wonders. 

(Hotel check-out should be done by 11h00). The day is free to explore on your own. Transfer back to the airport is not included.