With sociable cities, secluded beaches, wild natural beauty and some of the best food and wine in Europe, Portugal is a surefire hit for all types of holiday.

The Azores

An island-hopping trip to this volcanic, nine-island archipelago in the Atlantic feels like geological time travel. Sao Miguel, 4.1 million years old and in the west of the chain, is home to lake-filled, emerald calderas, steaming fumaroles and fertile soil where everything from tea to pineapples grow. Less than 300,000-year-old Pico is the baby of the bunch, dominated by the vast cone of a dormant stratovolcano and with fields of black lava where vines — which produce the island’s high-quality wines — thrive. Don’t miss middle-aged Terceira, in the central island group, where you can walk right into the magma chamber of an extinct volcano.
On Sao Miguel, stay on the waterfront at the elegant Octant Ponta Delgada.

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SOURCE: The Times