For its pale rocks and limewashed façades, this eight-kilometer-long islet is nicknamed the “White Island.” Graciosa is above all the most bucolic land of the Azores. Here, there is no rugged relief (the highest point tops out at 402 meters), but lush hills and fertile valleys where cereals have long been grown, and even sugar and tobacco.
In this pastoral setting live 4,000 people and about sixty burros, an indigenous species of dwarf donkeys that is critically endangered.
Things to See and Do on Graciosa Island in the Azores
- Sleep in a windmill: With their red domes, they are the island’s icons. Remnants of the era when Graciosa was the “granary of the Azores,” 28 windmills of Flemish inspiration dot the landscape. Many have been restored, and some, like the moinho Mó da Praia and the moinho de Pedra, have been converted into cottages.
- Venture into a chasm: To reach Furna do Enxofre, the “Sulfur Cave,” hidden beneath the caldera of a volcano in the southeast of the island, you must descend a spiraling staircase with 183 steps. But the final spectacle is worth the effort: a perfect vault, 40 meters high, shelters an underground lake illuminated by a beam of light.
With whom to travel?
The agency Les Maisons du Voyage, which helped us compile this dossier, puts its intimate knowledge of the Azores at your service, to trace the footsteps of our reporters, in 12 days (from 2,650 euros, flights, accommodations and a car included).
From São Miguel to Pico, via São Jorge and Faial, the islands come one after another without ever resembling each other: calderas overgrown with vegetation, steep coastlines battered by the Atlantic, fishing villages with intact Portuguese influences… This archipelago remains a destination apart, wild, warm, and deeply alive.
maisonsduvoyage.com and 0156813830
➤ Article published in GEO magazine no. 572, “The Azores, nine islands, nine worlds to explore”, October 2026.
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