My first exper­i­ences of the Azores

Through a very inter­est­ing set of coin­cid­ences I have met a young man from the Azores. We were hav­ing this con­ver­sa­tion and I asked him where he lives and he said, without a second of hes­it­a­tion, that he lives in Para­dise. I thought he was jok­ing, but then he showed me a few pho­tos which made me think: maybe he is right. To be com­pletely hon­est, I also felt a bit embar­rassed because I did not know exactly where these islands are located.

So here you are: the Azores islands (Açores in Por­tuguese), offi­cially the Autonom­ous Region of the Azores (Região Autónoma dos Açores), are loc­ated in the North Atlantic Ocean about 1,500 km west of Lis­bon, and about 2,000 km south­east of New­found­land, Canada, accord­ing to Wiki­pe­dia.

The archipelago is com­posed of nine vol­can­ic islands, with São Miguel Island being the largest of the 9.

Every island is char­ac­ter­ized by one par­tic­u­lar color

Santa Maria known as the yel­low island due to the abund­ance of yel­low broom on the island and because of it’s dry, warm, and sunny climate.

São Miguel is known as the green island due to its incred­ibly green pas­tures, fields, and forests.

Ter­cer­ia known as the purple island due to its lilac grape bunches.

Gra­ciosa known as the white island due to its land­scape char­ac­ter­ized by pale white rocks, and names giv­en to cer­tain places like Pedras Bran­cas (White Stones), Serra Branca (White Moun­tains), and Barro Branco (White Clay). Also, all houses on this island are whitewashed.

São Jorge known as the brown island due to the brown rocks of its fam­ous Pon­ta dos Ros­a­is (Ros­a­is Point).

Pico known as the grey island due to the rocky sur­face of its out­stand­ing Montanha do Pico (Mount Pico), also the highest point in Portugal.

Fai­al known as the blue island due to the blue hydrangeas that dec­or­ate the houses and that divide the fields and line the roadsides.

Flores known as the pink island due to the great pro­fu­sion of wild flowers, espe­cially pink azaleas.

Corvo known as the black island due to the lava walls that divide its fields and pastures.

The below gal­lery fea­tures the flowers the islands have been named after.

Sources: Pub­licor: Azores Tour­is Guide (ISBN 9789897350962)