AN AZORES ELOPEMENTSilvia & Florin
Silvia and Florin eloped on São Miguel, the big green island in the middle of the Azores, and the day took in most of it.
São Miguel is a long way out in the Atlantic, closer to nothing than anywhere, and it packs a ridiculous amount into an island you can drive across in an afternoon: waterfalls, hot springs, crater lakes, black beaches, and a coastline that looks different every few miles. Silvia and Florin wanted to see as much of it as one day allows, so the plan was to keep moving, from the green ridges in the northeast down to the sea stacks at Mosteiros for the last of the light. If you are thinking about an Azores elopement, São Miguel is where I would start.
The green side
The northeast of São Miguel is all wet green ridges, laurel forest and old gardens, with waterfalls hidden in the folds of it.
The morning went up into the hills, where the cloud sits low and the trees grow sideways out of the wind. There are miradouros cut into the cliffs up there, terraced gardens with paths that drop toward the sea, and down in one of the ravines the waterfall at Ribeira dos Caldeirões. Silvia and Florin walked all of it. Then a garden full of flowering hedges and a red path, and a viewpoint where the sun went down into the ocean.
The coast
The coast of São Miguel is younger and rougher, red cliffs and black rock and the odd stone harbour.
By the afternoon the light had gone flat and the wind had come up, which suits this side of the island. There are places where the cliffs are rust red and drop straight into the water, sea stacks off the shore, an old stone harbour, and a little white house with a blue door on an empty lane. Silvia and Florin worked their way along it, right down to the seabirds coming off the cliff. It is raw and dark and a bit end-of-the-world, and it photographs beautifully.
Mosteiros
Mosteiros is a black sand beach on the west coast, with rock islets standing just offshore, and it is where the day ended.
The islets at Mosteiros are the leftovers of old eruptions, black and jagged, and at sunset the whole beach goes to silhouette. Silvia and Florin had the sand mostly to themselves while the light went behind the rocks. It is the classic São Miguel ending, and it earns the drive.
São Miguel is one island in a group of nine. There is more of it in Claudia and Deniz’s wedding and Kasia and Kostek’s elopement. If a day like this, all over an island in the middle of the ocean, is your idea of getting married, come and find me.
