Portugal - Sete Ciudade, Azores

Our Azores Extravaganza continued with a guided tour to one of Sao Miguel’s most beautiful natural sites, which is saying a lot considering how beautiful EVERYTHING on this island is: Sete Ciudade (pronoucned set si-DAHJ - yes, Portuguese is very strange and strangely intoxicating), the large active volcanic crater on the western third of Sao Miguel.

The day was foggy, banks of clouds hiding and surreptitiously revealing everything from herds of milking cows to distant crater rims to rolling green hills (made of cooled lava flows and lopsided volcanic mouths, now covered in grass and criss-crossed by cow tracks).  We even came across ancient disused aqueducts that once carried volcanic lake water down to the villages below.  Somehow the mist added to the mystery, fairy-tale quality of the day.

All of these hills were formed by eruptions - some ancient, others not so old at all!

and fun to climb on!

These aqueducts used to carry fresh water to the city - 
quite a feat of engineering...

As we climbed up the steep road to the huge crater nestled into the western peak of the island, we marveled at the undulating volcanic landscape where repeated eruptions had joined Sete Ciudade, which was once its own island, to the rest of Sao Miguel.  We started with one tiny, isolated lake, then hiked up to a viewpoint that looked down on Sete Ciudade’s famous two connected lakes, Lagoa Verde e Lagao Azul (Green Lake and Blue Lake).  The clouds lifted just enough to show us this unbelievable view!  It was quite a gift, and we felt pretty blessed.  

The first lake - so peaceful, reminded us of home!

Clouds...

...no clouds!

Amazing - you can see the lakes, and the Atlantic just on the other side of the crater rim!

From this viewpoint you can see the twin lakes, Lagoa Azul e Lagoa Verde

Next, we drove down to the lakeside, and out onto a tiny peninsula that jutted into Lagoa Azul.  This, the most picturesque and potentially touristy part of the Azores, and we were totally alone and undisturbed.  It was like being in another world, or at least another time - one with far less people!  

Our tour was such a pleasure - Sete Ciudade, like the rest of the island, is a feast for the eyes, the heart, the soul.  It feels so remote, so calm and peaceful - and very warm and welcoming, like a cozy escape from a busy, bustling reality.    

From the peninsula that juts into Lagoa Azul

Aphyna just could not resist this perfect mermaid rock

There's the tiny village of Sete Ciudade, where we had lunch - so incredibly beautiful!  And until modern roads were built recently, many people lived their lives here without leaving this crater.  They were totally self-sufficient.  

Even our lakeside lunch in the tiny village of Sete Ciudade was relaxed, not overcrowded at all, even though it’s the only restaurant on the lake.  We can barely believe that this place exists, one of the most beautiful vacation destinations in Europe, and practically undiscovered.  Crazy!  

Visit this place, soon if you can - we’re sure that it won’t stay this unchanged for long.  But who knows?  The Azoreans seem to have their own way of doing things, far different from the greedy, profit-driven, entrepreneurial mentality that fuels most tourist explosions.  The pace here sure is slow.

Andy was phenomenal again as our tour guide; we can’t recommend his company enough, Azores Connections.  They made our trip to the Azores stress-free, and shared with us their infectious love of the islands.  Thanks Andy & Laura, you rock!  

Oh, and I have to mention this: right next to one of the rim’s best viewpoints, is the eviscerated skeletal ruin of a luxury hotel.  

What?!?  So fun to explore, but, like, what??  What is it doing there?  Why is it deserted?  

Story time!  

Andy told us the real story of the hotel’s meteoric rise and equally meteoric dissolution, and recommended this video that shows what it looked like when it was built - a top-of-the-line 5 star luxury hotel, way ahead of its time for the late 70s/early 80s.  

But the real story is boring.  So let me tell you this one that Aphyna and I made up (though it draws on a few folks tales, including a local legend), accompanied by some of our pictures to set the spooky mood:

In the early 70s, a young entrepreneur from the mainland came to Sao Miguel.  He didn’t have much money but he was full of big dreams and big ideas, and was sure that he would become one of the richest and most powerful men in the country.  He loved the island of Sao Miguel, and searched for a place to make his fortune.  In the small village of Sete Ciudade, he found the beauty he was looking for: but not only in the landscape.  One day as he hiked along the crater's rim, he heard the sound of a lovely voice singing: he followed it and found a beautiful woman, the daughter of a local farmer. She lived on a tract of land on the mountainside, where their family earned a modest but sufficient living from the sweat of their backs and the milk from their cows.  He promptly fell in love with her, and came to visit her in the high field day after day. The woman, too, fell in love with the young businessman, finding his promises of wealth and riches as intoxicating as the musky smell of his skin in the humid summer air.  

They spent the long months of the summer together, entwined in their youthful lust.  She took him to all of her favorite places in Sete Ciudade, and when she took him to Vista Del Rei, the King’s Overlook, with its spectacular view of the twin blue lakes, he knew he had found the place for his hotel.  They bid farewell, but not before he made his promise, that he would gather investors, return, and build the hotel of his dreams - and once it was complete, he would marry her, and they would spend the rest of their happy days together, as they were that summer.

Fortune was kind to the young business man - he was shrewd and clever, and found success in importing and exporting, all of his gambles paying off at the expense of others.  And, slowly but surely, he gathered the momentum for his largest project of all: the Hotel Monte.  The investors could not resist his confidence and growing reputation.  Five years passed, and he had the funding he needed to begin construction: he hired crews and bosses, supervised the design, and went over to the island to prepare to break ground.  

All the while, the farmer’s daughter had waited for him.  Her love for the young man had only grown.  When he returned, he discovered that she had a child - his son, four years old, already.  The man was delighted!  And in their reunion, it was as if they had never parted.  The businessman was too enraptured with overseeing the construction of the hotel to worry about their marriage.  But surely, he promised, they would wed, as soon as it was complete.  Construction began on the hotel; it went well; and in eighteen months, the hotel was built, and the man and woman had another child.

The hotel was magnificent - a marvel of modern architecture and luxury, with marble tiling, immaculate decoration, and stunning views of the ocean on one side and the lakes on the other.  Mainland high society flocked to it: the opening was a gala the likes of which were unseen and unheard of on the islands.  It was the talk of high society.  The season went on - it was a smashing success.

And as time passed, the businessman grew distant from the farmer’s daughter.  He began to lose interest in such a simple woman, who had no interest in the niceties and fine things of high society.  Of course he could not take her to the hotel’s fetes and galas and banquets - what would the nobility say?  Unthinkable!  And as he spent less time with her and his children, he became distracted, forgetting his promises.  The women in fine jewelry, bedecked in sparkling sapphires and glittering gold, were much more fitting for a man of his aspirations.

Finally, the woman could take it no longer.  She had waited; she had nursed his children; she believed in every fiber of her being that in time, he would come to her and fulfill his promise.  And so one day, she came to the office he kept in the hotel, walked up to his desk, and demanded marriage.

The man was quiet.  He folded his hands, steeled his jaw, and said to her, “I cannot marry you - I am betrothed to a nobleman’s daughter on the mainland. It is better for me, and better for you, if we go on as if we never met.”  

The woman was crushed; then, she erupted.  She flew into a great rage, which shook the hotel to its foundations, and silenced every voice.  The trees and birds and wind held still, as they listened to the woman howl, scream, wail, and beat her fists.  She attacked the man, gnashing her teeth, raking his face.  She shrieked so loudly, it cracked the windows of the office, then the lobby, then the glass doors in every room in the hotel.  She stomped so fiercely, it cracked the painted walls, the marble floors, the high ceilings.  Then, she turned and ran from the office, ran from the lobby, and went to the door - but not before turning and uttering a curse so foul, so vile, so vicious, the island itself shuddered.

The woman grabbed her children, and took them down to the edge of the lake - there, she threw the children in, and followed afterwards, pulling them under the surface.  Their bodies never surfaced, and were never found - but the lake turned green, a constant reminder of her curse and the price she paid to cast it.  The locals say that her rage still burns: her fury boils the waters in the caldeiras, the pounding of her fists can be heard echoing up from the heart of the island, and one day, it will certainly erupt again.

Of course, the hotel was shunned by the locals, and the staff all but evaporated overnight.  The guests departed immediately, canceled their reservations; those who didn’t were plagued by strange illness, horrible dreams and visions, and freak accidents, injury and death.  Within a month, the hotel was plummeting into financial ruin.  

The man left the hotel, and was never heard from or seen on the island of Sao Miguel again.

The moral of the story: GHOST STORIES ARE FUN!!

Thanks for reading, everyone - we'll catch up with you in a few days with a recap of the rest of our trip in Sao Miguel!