A Ilha do Corvo, or ‘Crow Island’, is the tiniest and most isolated island of the Azores. Lying only 15 kilometres from its neighbour island of Flores, Corvo is only over 6 square miles in area and hard to access because of its steep forbidding coastline. The island is 7 kilometres long from North to South, and just 4.5 kilometres wide at its widest point. It is a rocky volcano whose central caldeira, Monte Gordo reaches 2,549 ft before falling away in steep black slopes battered at the foot by the ocean. The road enables visitors to reach the summit of the caldeira and to make the tour of the island.
Corvo has less than 1,000 inhabitants. Almost everyone is related and life on island is simple, almost communal and peaceful. Virtually everyone here lives in the one village, Vila do Crovo, where they never lock their doors and crime is unknown. In stormy winter weather, Corvo’s only link with the rest of the world is by radio or telephone. Fishing, crop-growing and sheep provide the islanders’ main source of income, and it’s no wonder that many of them immigrated at least to the larger Azorean islands if not to America or mainland Portugal.
Visitors to the island are naturally the object of great curiosity, surrounded by friendly offers of help and guides to show you the ‘sights’. For even this little island has its natural wonder – the Caldeirlio, or ‘Great Cauldron’, an extinct volcanic crater nearly 1,000 ft deep. Its gently sloping walls, green-carpeted for the grazing sheep, encircle a sparkling, irregular-shaped lake dotted with seven tiny islands. As glorious as any landscape in the archipelago, the sublime perfection and serenity of Corvo’s Caldeirao reflects the essence of the Azores – tranquillity, timelessness and exquisite natural beauty.