Pico Island is located in Azores, Portugal. And a ferry ride from Horta to Madalena, the main town of Pico takes about 30 minutes each way.
If it’s a windy day with heavy seas, the ferry captain will need all his skill and experience to negotiate the narrow entrance to Madalena harbour with rolling waves crashing on either side of the breakwater.
Pico is the second largest island in the Azores with an area of 446 sq km. There must be a lot to see here but if you’re there for only half a day, you will only be able to look around the town.
The main attraction on Pico Island is Mt Pico which is a dormant volcano and Portugal’s highest mountain at 2,351 metres. It last erupted in 1718, producing lava flows that reached the sea.
The summit is often shrouded in clouds but if you’re lucky, the mountain sometimes reveals itself with its upper slopes still covered in snow.
Madalena is a quiet, sleepy town where about 6,000 of the island’s 15,000 people live. At its centre stands the Church of Santa Maria Magdalena with its ornate gilded altar.
Pico is a wine-producing island and grapes somehow thrive in the soilless but fertile volcanic landscape.
The vines have to be protected from prevailing winds and sea spray and to do this a unique method has developed over 500 years whereby long stone walls divide up vineyards into small protected plots.
These walls were built by collecting up the volcanic boulders in the fields and stacking them up. This distinctive viniculture landscape has been recognised by Unesco as a World Heritage site.
Low stone walls of basalt surround the vines. Black basalt absorbs and throws out heat, enhancing the sugar content of the grapes.
The Museu do Vinho at Madalena has examples of these stone walls although the actual Unesco site is some way out of town.
At the museum there are some fine dragon trees (dracaena draco, linnaeus) which are typical of the Macaronesian archipelago (the term Macaronesia refers to Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands and Cape Verde). These trees were used to produce a red dye known as dragons’ blood.
At the sea front is a public sea water pool which must be pleasant in summer with great views looking back towards Faial Island.
This article first appeared on thriftytraveller.wordpress.com