Pico was the reason we went to the Azores.
Our friend Jeff had grown up with stories of the volcanic island his great-grandfather had left behind — a mythical place in family memory, vivid and specific despite being entirely unknown to him firsthand. When we began planning Portugal, it was clear the Azores had to be part of it. Pico especially.
The year before, I had designed a heritage journey to Italy for our family — tracing our own surname to a small town in the Piedmont foothills, standing in the places that had produced the people who eventually produced my husband, Aaron, and now our two sons.
Jeff had enjoyed hearing how that trip took shape and felt something stir. He had grown up with stories of the volcanic island his great-grandfather had left behind — a mythical place in family memory, vivid and specific despite being entirely unknown to him firsthand. He shared his dream of seeing it. I was honored to help make it a reality, and genuinely excited to see it alongside him.
The morning we crossed was clear and still. Our ferry from Horta arrived at the Madalena port as the light broke over the channel. Jeff stood at the rail as the island materialized — its mass, its presence, its particular quality of being exactly where the family stories had always placed it.
He was the first of his family to make this crossing since his great-grandfather had made it in the opposite direction, more than a century ago, setting sail for California to build a life that would eventually produce Jeff, here now, reversing the journey. He stood still for a long moment, swept by something between emotion and disbelief. For Jeff this wasn’t a trip; it was a homecoming to a place he had never been.
Our guide for the day was Andrei — a young Romanian who had made his own journey to the Azores and stayed, drawn by the island’s particular quality and knowledgeable about its history with the enthusiasm of someone who had chosen to be there. We didn’t know it then, but Romania would find its way into our lives a few months later, in a different kind of way entirely.
He drove us first to a historic windmill above the UNESCO World Heritage vineyards — the vast grid of ancient stone enclosures stretching from the slopes down to the sea. The vines run low along the volcanic rock rather than climbing trellises, each enclosure a small fortress against the Atlantic salt wind. The wine they once produced here was celebrated across Europe; Russian czars and continental nobility considered it among the finest available.
Then phylloxera arrived in the 19th century — imported on American vines, spreading through root systems with no natural resistance — and the industry collapsed. Pico’s winemakers became whalers out of desperation, not sport.
In Lajes do Pico, Jeff’s great-grandfather’s birthplace, the weight of that history is still present in the streets. Small, colorful dormers face the sea from the old whaling cottages — windows where women would wait, watching for the boats to return. Small open vessels dragging harpooned, flailing whales back to shore: risky, brutal work driven by necessity. Walking those cobblestone streets between basalt walls, past the old whaling port, gave the family stories a geography they had previously lacked.
Andrei had brought lunch — a homemade meal made by a local couple. He drove to a nearby park, guiding us to a covered picnic area. He sat down with us without ceremony, poured wine, explained each dish — a pot of beans, a savory cheese tart, sausage, cheese and bread — started in on the main dish, finished what remained on the platters with the easy comfort of someone who belonged at the table. This is the version of a place that never appears in tourism materials.
From there we ascended the slopes of Pico’s towering volcano into a dense mist. On the narrow road upward we encountered what Andrei called a quintessential Pico traffic jam: a local herding cows down the road with ease and familiarity, moving them along in his shorts and rain boots while his truck idled behind them, unhurried. We waited. The cows were not concerned with our schedule. Higher up, hiking toward the lava tubes, we passed more cows grazing peacefully in the misty pastures — the island’s agrarian life continuing at its own pace alongside the volcanic landscape that produced it.
Andrei guided us into the lava tubes: dark, twisting passageways carved by ancient rivers of molten rock, their surfaces shimmering with iridescent bacteria so fragile that we moved carefully and touched nothing. The formations were beautiful in the way that deep geological time occasionally produces — a beauty that has nothing to do with human intention and everything to do with the forces that shaped this island and the people who found ways to live on it.
We emerged and drove to the Azores Wine Company, its low cantilevered roofline blending into the landscape as if the building had grown from the same volcanic rock as everything around it. Inside, a clean modern architectural space celebrated traditional methods and local varietals. Seven tastings: Verdelho, the island’s signature white — crisp, mineral, with a salinity that tasted precisely of where it had grown. Today a new generation is restoring the vineyards, the knowledge almost lost but not quite. The wine is proof that what was nearly destroyed can be brought back.
We had to leave quickly to catch the last ferry back to Horta, stopping briefly at the wine barrel restaurant above the natural swimming pool — a place that deserved more time than we had, noted for a return. Back on Faial that evening, we walked the waterfront in the warm light, down to the marina and its painted flags. Jeff was quieter than he had been in the morning. Some crossings take longer to absorb than the ferry ride home.
Pico connects to the Azores Atlas and the Portugal country page. Read about Faial, where this journey began → and São Miguel, where it continued →