Many visitors on São Miguel are eager to visit the site that is printed as the cover of many popular travel guides. The site is easily accessible in the car, but we recommend leaving it in the car park opposite of the entrance
and taking a short walk rather than just walking to the observation point and back. Afterwards, you can just walk through the entrance and follow the path.
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This path also has its own charm. You will see the steep slopes of the crater walls, and the dense vegetation, and the view you get of the ocean is at least as pretty as the view from the observation point.
After enjoying the view, take the path that leads you to the right.
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This will lead you to a small “ravine”, that is much more interesting than the direct path leading to the observation point.
At the end of this path, you will get back to the main road. Follow it until you reach the car park to your left. The path along the road is easy to walk on, and it means you won’t walk the same path twice. By the way, this car park also acts as a starting point for several other hikes. They lead across and around smaller craters with their lookouts and the lakes contained within them. One of the photos in the article about the lost places was taken here.
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