The 10 Best Flores Viewpoints: Azores Photo Spots Galore

Flores is a gorgeous island far out on the western edge of the already far-flung Azores archipelago. It boasts a rather fantastic combination of incredible scenery, smooth roads, stunning Flores viewpoints and hardly any people. Local or tourist. In fact, the permanent population of Flores is just over 3,000 and as for tourists, well, you can expect to see considerably fewer than that. Less than a hundred on the entire island during our visit, if I had to guess.

The Azores are made up of 9 islands and the much bigger and more populated São Miguel and Terceira are far and away the most popular. And both quite a good time, as well, I must say. We actually flew into Terceira, visited Flores next, day tripped to Corvo (more on that later), then finished in São Miguel, where we took advantage of the somewhat surprising direct flight to Toronto (also available to Montreal).

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And, of the four islands we saw, lovely little Flores was definitely our favourite. Gloriously green, endlessly hilly, ringed by dramatic cliffs and filled with lush valleys and impressive waterfalls, Flores is everything you imagine when you think of a remote island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Although, realistically, I have no idea what you imagine remote islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean look like but, I can now tell you, at least one of them looks like that.

While there are a few buses that pass by sporadically, to properly enjoy the island and visit all the best Flores viewpoints, you really need your own set of wheels. Thankfully, car rentals are big business on Flores. If you can call anything there big business. In this context, six rental company booths in a tiny airport seems to qualify.

We used Booking.com to rent cars on three different islands and had great experiences in every case – two through Autatlantis (Flores/São Miguel) and one with Angrauto (Terceira). However, Flores was the only place where they were considerate enough to give us a car that perfectly matched my windbreaker, ideal for blending in case of attack. As always when renting cars, you’ll find much better prices if you book well ahead.

The best part about renting a car on Flores, the roads are great! Which was a bit unexpected on such a small, remote island. Sure, they are a bit on the narrow side, but at least all those little rental Fiat Pandas and Volkswagen Ups don’t really take up much space. And, sure, the roads are definitely winding, with lots of hills and curves and just enough tight hairpins to keep you on your toes. But smooth, so smooth, “like butter” or maybe more accurately, like relatively new pavement.

And, most importantly, just riddled with handy pullouts where you can enjoy the dozens of amazing Flores viewpoints or, as they are called in Portuguese, “miradouros”. There are literally enough exceptional Flores photo spots to keep you occupied all week but, considering very few people spend that much time there, and to help you prioritize your time, we have narrowed the list down to our 10 favourites.

The list is a mix of beautiful cliff shots, shocking waterfall vistas and atmospheric port photos, with a couple stunning photos from tiny Corvo thrown in for good measure, partially because we visited it on a day trip from Flores – making them at least vaguely related to our other Flores viewpoints – and partially because they were simply too cool and I needed to find a way to squeeze them in. Much like I did with the word “galore” in the title, yet another writing bucket list item checked off. Next goal, find an organic way to include a five consecutive p-word alliteration…

The viewpoints are NOT ranked but are, instead, listed in the order you could/should see them on a counterclockwise loop around the island starting in the main (and only) town on the island, Santa Cruz das Flores.

Map of Best Viewpoints on Flores

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10 Best Flores Viewpoints / Miradouros

Dos Caimbros

Ilheu Furado

Ponta Delgada

Baia de Alem

Caldera Negra-Comprida

Poḉo da Alagoinha

Lagoas Rasa e Funda

Faja de Lopo Vaz

Faja do Conde

Porto Velho

Best Corvo Viewpoints

As I mentioned earlier, we also took a scenic – and surprisingly rough – boat trip to the island of Corvo for a day. It started with a half-hour cruise along the extremely photogenic coastline of Flores before heading out across an open stretch of the Atlantic to see the somehow even smaller island of Corvo. We saw a bunch of dolphins along the way, although that isn’t the point right now. Plus, they are very good at popping up where you least expect them, meaning, no, I did not get any decent photos.

Corvo has a cute little town – Vila do Corvo – but is mainly famous for its ridiculously picturesque volcanic “caldeirão”. We took a taxi to the caldera rim (€10 p/p), which is located at the far end of the island. Most other visitors (all 10 of them) hiked down into the crater but we decided to stay up top and walk along crater rim for even better angles of this natural phenomenon.

Then later we walked back to the port because, yeah, Corvo is basically only 6 km from one end to the other. Like I said, small. Pretty, pretty small.

More Flores Viewpoints

Now, as I mentioned earlier, there were not actually just 10 nice viewpoints on Flores. No, in fact, there are literally dozens and deciding on our favourites was easily the most difficult and frustrating hour of one random morning in May for me. So here are 8 more that didn’t quite make the cut but are all well-marked and found along the same route, in case you have more time to spend (also marked on our map).

Dos Cedros

Porto de Ponta Delgada

Vale da Fazenda

Craveiro Lopes

Caldeira Funda

Rocha das Bordoes

Cartario

Monte das Cruzes

Summary

The Azores have been on our list for quite some time so we were very excited to finally get there. Marooned way out in the middle of the Atlantic, nearly as close to North America as to the rest of Portugal, these islands feature some truly epic scenery. And of the four we visited, Flores wins the prize for best scenery, edging out sensational Corvo in a close vote, with the difference mainly down to points for volume and diversity. You’re definitely going to want to check out both, though.

Now, time to start thinking about a return visit to check out those other 5 islands…

Other Routinely Nomadic posts you might like:

The Madeira Collection

The Best of the Costa Vicentina

The Best Armacao Beaches and Viewpoints

Rota Vicentina and the Fishermen’s Trail

The Camino Portuguese Coastal Route

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The Best Zakynthos Photo Spots