Following the coastal road towards the airport, you pass first through the village of Feteira, with fine solid old houses, their gardens spilling blossom over the walls — hibiscus, roses, mimosa, geraniums. The 19th-century church, replacing a 16th-century chapel on the same site, has an attractive blue and white tiled steeple over the bell-tower, which had to be restored after an earthquake in 1926.
Off the coast near Feteira are some bizarre black rock formations, grottoes and arches, best seen from a boat, which resulted from molten lava bubbling and steaming into the sea. Passing the airport road on the left, the next village is Castelo Branco, with several small houses painted in the Azoreans’ typical colours – shocking pink, soft blue, eau-de-nil, bright yellow. Yellow and white seems to be the favourite combination in nearby Lombega, where there is also a pretty roadside chapel decorated with turquoise tiles. Rounding the steep coastline with a delightful profusion of wild flowers, a left turn at Arieiro leads down to the popular holiday spot of Varadouro. Lots of holiday villas cling to the hillside as you descend towards the sea and there’s a ‘natural’ sea-water swimming pool among the black rocks. Varadouro’s fame rests upon the discovery in 1853 of a thermal spring, which prompted the building of a balnedrio, original bathhouse now replaced by a very institutional-looking building.
Rejoining the main road, a short distance on you passes through the village of Capelo. To the left of the road, it’s a watchtower for the whale-spotters in summer. In Capelo, a minor road branches off to the left, and as you follow it you’re in no doubt as to where it leads. All around is a volcanic desert, cinders and ash in which nothing yet grows, all due to a major eruption in 1957. The old volcano of Capelo had shown frequent activity throughout the centuries, but in 1957 a submarine eruption caused a new volcano to rise out of the sea just off this westernmost tip of Faial, near the rocky islets of Capelinhos.
On and off for months, the explosions made a dramatic fireworks display, hurling fiery molten matter into the sky. A westerly wind blew burning cinders across the island, causing hurried evacuation and eventually burying whole villages, farms and fields in a thick layer of ash. Gradually, as the molten lava solidified and spread, the Capelinhos islets became joined to the mainland and the new volcano took their name, Volcao dos Capelinhos. It’s possible to drive down over the cindery track and stand beside a half-buried lighthouse which formerly marked the edge of the coast. There’s several hundred yards of volcanic sand dunes between the abandoned lighthouse and the sea.
A small house on the road back towards Horta, contains the so-called Museu do Volcao, a collection of tatty but fascinating photographs with English captions explaining the volcano’s progress, and a few lava ‘bombs’ and other samples of ejected matter. If the museum is closed when you arrive, give a toot or two on the car horn and someone will appear from the nearby houses to let you in. Continuing the tour of the island, a main road north from Capela enters the scene of worst devastation – homes and fields all but hidden under deep layers of ash.
Around the village of Praia do Norte, the volcano’s effects are forgotten, for here the countryside is green and lush with lots of suitable sites for picnics and splendid views down over the coat. The northernmost point of Faial, Punta dos Cedros, is just west of Cedros itself, where the first settlers arrived at Faial. The original church, now replaced by an extraordinary ultra-modern chapel, dated from the 16th century but was almost entirely destroyed by a fire in 1971, only the old bell-tower remaining.
Salão, a mile or two beyond Cedros, is a small village amid some of Faial’s most delightful countryside, surrounded by wild flowers and especially the blooming hydrangeas which were introduced to the Azores in the 18th century and are now thoroughly naturalized. Through Ribeirinha and Pedro Miguel, typical ‘ribbon’ development, each with a handsome 17th-century church, the road finally returns to Horta via the headland of Espalamaea, topped by a windmill or two and a prominent monument overlooking the town. The monument is dedicated to Our Lady of the Coneception and bears a marble statue of the Virgin standing below a 90 ft cross (raised 1962).
From Horta, one final excursion is to the deep volcanic crater in the centre of the island, La Caldeira. Almost perfectly circular with a diameter of over 2,000 yards, the crater contains a small lake nearly 1,300 ft below the rim, reflecting blue sky and dark shadows cast by the crater walls. On the southern edge of the crater are Faial’s highest peaks, including Cabeco Gordo, more than 3,400 ft above sea level.
