My boyfriend and I have booked flight to Sao Miguel (Azores) where we will stay for 7 nights. We are now looking for accommodation.
Would you recommend us to stay all 7 nights in Ponta Delgada or is it better also to spend nights in Furnas, Ribeira Grande or another town?
I found the island small enough and easy to explore from Ponta Delgada as a base if you have your own rental car. Ponta Delgada is also the only mid-sized city on the island with a choice of places to eat and always pleasant for an evening walk.
You can see https://meczko.wordpress.com/europe/ for my 2015 trip report with some practicalities.
We just got back a week ago. We really liked Furnas and stayed there four nights. We were there to walk. The walk around the lake at Furnas was great. We drove to Sete Cidades to do the caldeira walk and really enjoyed that one, even though it was a much longer drive than it would have been from Ponta Delgada. We were in Ponta Delgada three nights, two at the beginning and one at the end. (We also went to Sao Jorge, but we had two weeks.) There were some very interesting churches in Ponta Delgada, and it's true that there was more choice of restaurants than in the smaller towns. But it is a cruise ship port and when the boats are in, it is overwhelmed during the day. The smaller towns seemed prettier. We spent a day in Ribeira Grande and we had fun, but I don't think I would have wanted to stay there overnight. The most interesting place there, the Emigration Museum, is closed weekends, but we went out to Tuka Tula bar and had a nice lunch and watched the surfers (it was a Saturday).
Maybe because there wasn't a cruise ship in town and it's not yet peak tourist season, but Ponta Delgada didn't feel overwhelmed at all when we were there last weekend. So from my experience, I'd recommend it as a base. No place on the island is further than an hour away. You'd want to rent a car or join a tour to get the most of the island.
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