In the crater: four lakes, one town

With Svein Hugo at the wheel we whiz out of town. In our rental car crammed with five full size sailors. First stop: Pineapple green-houses. Little baby pineapples in long rows of window-sill plants. They smoke the plants into thinking the end is near, causing all of them to flower simultaneously. Eventually they all grow big and yellow; it takes 18 months. Some of them get converted to pineapple brandy. Which you can taste at the brandy factory on the island.

Now we head west and north to the enormous caldeira, crater, which contains four lakes and the little village of Sete Cidades (Seven Cities). Lagão Azul, Blue Lake and Lagão Verde, Green Lake, are divided by the road. It's the blue sky that creates the Azul. Today it's Grey Lake! The green end is colored by the steep crater side and the cedar trees growing up it.
The village, white-washed and winding, has a lovely church, São Nicolão, at the end of a long cedar-lined lane.

You can drive along the crater rim. If you like motoring on narrow ridges, protected only by blue hortensia bushes. Enough of us in our rental car liked it to form a majority. Some of us were slightly envious of the hikers we passed along the way.