Where to swim on an island with almost no sand: imported beaches, black pebbles, lava pools and municipal lidos.
The Azores are volcanic islands, so the coast is cliffs and boulders rather than sand. What they have instead is three different kinds of swimming place, and knowing which is which decides the afternoon: bays of black volcanic sand, natural pools that the Atlantic fills and refreshes, and built lidos with ladders into the open sea. A coast facing the swell closes often; the sheltered side of the same island is calm on the same day.
Vitor Oliveira from Torres Vedras, PORTUGAL · CC BY-SA 2.0
Zona Balnear do Negrito
Angra do Heroísmo
Bathing platformBlue Flag
Terraces and pools beside a 16th-century fort at São Mateus da Calheta.
The Forte do Negrito stands on the point above the bathing area, one of the coastal batteries that ringed the island, and the swimming is off lava platforms and ladders below it. There is a bar, a lawn, and enough flat rock that it does not feel crowded even when the car park is full.
Worth knowing: It is ten minutes from Angra and on the bus route, which makes it the practical swim for anyone staying in town without a car.
Angra do Heroísmo's own bathing platforms, a short walk west of the centre.
Silveira is the city's swimming place: built terraces and ladders on the rock just outside the bay, under the western edge of town and in sight of Monte Brasil. It is small, it is urban, and it is the reason nobody in Angra thinks the lack of a town beach is a problem.
Worth knowing: Walkable from the old town in fifteen minutes, which none of the other Terceira bathing areas is.
The largest sand beach in the Azores, along the whole bay at Praia da Vitória.
Praia da Vitória is named after its beach and the beach is the reason the town works as a resort: a long strand of pale sand inside a bay closed by two breakwaters, with the promenade, the marina and the town's bars immediately behind it. It is the one Azorean beach where the water is dependably flat, which is why it is where families from the whole island go.
Worth knowing: Parking is along the promenade and free; the southern half by the marina is the sheltered end, the northern half takes whatever swell gets past the wall.
The small beach at the north end of the Praia da Vitória bay.
Prainha is the quieter half of the same bay: a short stretch of sand under the hill, separated from the main beach by rock, with its own bar and lifeguard in season. It is a five-minute walk from the town centre and reliably less crowded than Praia Grande for the sake of that short walk.
Worth knowing: Same water as Praia Grande, a third of the people — go here in August and walk the promenade for the bars.
Tidal pools and a slipway in a fishing village on the east coast.
Porto Martins is a working village with its bathing area built into the rocks beside the harbour: pools, steps into deep water, a deck and a restaurant looking out at the Ilhéu das Cabras. It is on the lee side for a westerly, which is most of the year, and it is where Angra goes when the south coast is choppy.
Worth knowing: The two Cabras islets straight offshore are a protected seabird colony and one of the island's dive sites; the boats leave from here and from Angra.
A pebble bay on the south-east coast, and the site of the 1581 battle.
The bay at Salga is where a Spanish landing force was broken in 1581 — by the islanders and, the story goes, by a herd of loose cattle — and a monument above the shore says so. The bathing area is on grey pebbles and rock with a small bar, a car park and a slipway, sheltered by the headland on either side.
Worth knowing: Pebbles, not sand: shoes help getting in, and the water is deep within a few metres of the shore.
The best-known lava pools in the Azores, in the black rock below the Biscoitos vineyards.
A set of pools in a jagged field of aa lava — biscoitos, biscuits, is what the islanders call this kind of ground — with concrete walkways, ladders and changing rooms threaded between them. The sea comes in over the rock to refill them, and the walled verdelho vineyards that make the island's wine start immediately above.
Worth knowing: North coast, so a big northerly swell closes it outright; on a calm day it is the single best swim on Terceira. The wine museum is a few hundred metres up the road.
Vitor Oliveira from Torres Vedras, PORTUGAL · CC BY-SA 2.0
Zona Balnear das Quatro Ribeiras
Praia da Vitória
Natural poolsBlue Flag
Rock pools and a bar on the north coast, below the mills at Quatro Ribeiras.
A smaller and quieter version of Biscoitos, ten minutes east along the same coast: pools in the lava, a concrete deck, a beach bar and a car park at the top of the steps. The cliffs here are the columnar basalt the PR02TER trail crosses, and there is a waterfall onto the rocks a short way west.
Worth knowing: Get here early on a hot Sunday — the car park is small and the locals know it better than the visitors do.
Vitor Oliveira from Torres Vedras, PORTUGAL · CC BY-SA 2.0
Zona Balnear das Cinco Ribeiras
Angra do Heroísmo
Bathing platformBlue Flag
Concrete terraces and a slipway in a small harbour west of Angra.
No sand: you swim off decks and ladders around the little port of Cinco Ribeiras, with a bar above and the west end of the south coast in view. The water is clear and deep straight off the steps, and the terraces catch the afternoon sun for as long as there is any.
Worth knowing: One of the two best snorkelling entries on the island — the other is Negrito, five minutes east along the same road.
Facilities and lifeguard cover follow the municipal bathing season, which runs roughly from May to October and varies by council. A red flag is a closure, not a warning: it means the sea is beyond what the lifeguards can cover.
