Prainha and Santo Amaro: the 1562 lava field, Baía de Canas and Pico's boatbuilders

East of São Roque, the north coast road runs through two small parishes that are easy to drive straight through on the way to somewhere else. Prainha sits on a lava field from 1562, with a forest park and a bay of old wine cellars at its edge. Santo Amaro, next door, is where Pico built its wooden boats. Together they fill a slow half day, and more if you walk the official loop.

On 21 September 1562 the ground at Prainha shook for about twenty minutes, and an eruption began on the ridge east of Pico mountain. It lasted into 1564. People on São Jorge, across the channel, watched it. The lava ran for around 10 kilometres down to the sea and built out the coast. Ponta do Mistério, the low black point east of Prainha, is the delta that flow left behind.

Azoreans call a historic lava field a mistério, and this one gave the area its name. Up the slope you can see the steep spatter cones the eruption left, the Cabeços do Mistério; the highest stands at 881 metres. Down by the sea, the old flows are covered in heath, moss and a mix of native and planted trees. Much of the lava field is now a protected nature reserve.

The Reserva Florestal de Recreio da Prainha covers 15 hectares of that lava, on the slope above Baía de Canas. It makes a good picnic stop, with tables, a playground, a playing field and a big lawn by the bay. Paths wind between tree heath and faia, the native firetree, along with pittosporum and pines planted later.

Four restored rural buildings stand in the park: a threshing floor, a mill, a wine cellar and a grinding mill. They show how much rural life here depended on the forest. The municipality also lists a viewpoint over the channel to São Jorge and space for camping. We found no published opening hours for the park.

Below the park, Baía de Canas is a summer hamlet of a few houses on the water, about 8 kilometres east of São Roque. For centuries the bay was planted with vines. You still walk between currais, the small plots of vines walled in loose black stone, past adegas, the stone wine cellars where families pressed and stored their wine, on paths paved with basalt.

Look for the Convento dos Frades, a tiny chapel with rooms that the friars used at harvest time. There is a small black beach you can reach from the water side. A dirt road heads west from the bay onto the lava of the Mistério.

If you want to see the parish properly, walk it. PRC9PIC Prainha do Norte is an 8.8 kilometre circuit, graded easy, that takes about three hours. It starts and ends on Largo Dr. José Machado Serpa, the square by the church of Nossa Senhora da Ajuda, and never climbs much above 130 metres.

The route runs past small farms, orchards and vineyards in their stone currais. It reaches the Ponta da Rocha viewpoint, which looks over both Prainha and Santo Amaro, and Casa do Fio, the house where a submarine cable once came ashore. The little Ermida de São Pedro has a human face carved into the base of its cross. Near the bay of Canto da Areia, an abandoned vineyard has gone back to coastal heath. Part of the coast is a protected area, partly because Cory's shearwaters nest there.

The loop also passes Poça Branca, a single walled sea pool at the end of a narrow lane in Prainha de Baixo, with a deck and a shower and not much else. Our swimming guide compares it with the busier pools. For the other loops on this coast, see coastal walks on Pico.

Santo Amaro is the smallest parish in the municipality, with 255 people at the 2021 census. It has no natural harbour, yet for generations it was where Pico built its boats. Shipwrights turned crooked, twisted timber into whaleboats, launches and fishing boats using old techniques handed down in the yards.

Its later work included the tuna fleet. Master João Alberto das Neves, who came from São Jorge, built nine wooden tuna boats of about 30 metres here. Several of them, the Balaia and the Flor do Pico among them, still fish in Azorean waters. Fibreglass later proved cheaper and faster, and the yard no longer builds boats commercially.

Two small private collections keep the trade on show: a maritime museum of boatbuilding and a craft house with miniature boats and farm tools. Neither publishes opening hours, so ask in the village whether someone can open up.

The Escola de Artesanato on Rua do Mar is easier to find. It is a craft school and an exhibition of rural life in one, where students learn weaving, embroidery and straw work. Look there for the island's odder crafts: straw dolls, carved fig pith, and flowers made from fish scales.

Finish at the parish church, rebuilt in 1629, and the harbour below it. Santo Amaro has small sea pools at its harbour and at Portinho, the hamlet just along the coast, and Caisinho in the parish is on the 2026 list of official bathing areas, with a season from June to September.

With a car, the simplest plan is to drive east from São Roque, walk the PRC9PIC loop in the morning, eat in the forest park, then go down to Baía de Canas and on to Santo Amaro in the afternoon. Without the walk, two or three hours covers the park, the bay and the village. Buses on this coast are too sparse to plan a day around, as our getting around Pico guide explains.

The north coast faces São Jorge, and a northerly swell shuts its pools. When the sea is up, skip the pools and spend longer on the lava and in the park.

What is the Mistério da Prainha? The lava field from the eruption that began on 21 September 1562 and lasted into 1564. Its flows reached the sea at Ponta do Mistério, and much of it is now a nature reserve.

How long is the Prainha do Norte trail? 8.8 kilometres, circular and graded easy. Allow about three hours from the church square in Prainha.

Can you swim at Baía de Canas? There is a small black beach, but the bay is not on the 2026 list of official bathing areas. For a pool with a deck and a shower, go to Poça Branca in Prainha de Baixo.

Can you visit a boatyard in Santo Amaro? Not on a schedule. The yard no longer builds commercially and the two small museums are private, with no set hours. The craft school on Rua do Mar is the easiest place to see local work.