Walk the rim of a crater with a village at the bottom

At the western end of São Miguel the volcano of Sete Cidades left a crater about five kilometers across. Two lakes lie at the bottom of it, and so does a village: fewer than eight hundred people live down there, in houses along the shore.

The lakes come with a story. A princess with blue eyes and a shepherd with green ones were forbidden to marry, and between them they cried enough to fill two lakes, one of each color. Every version agrees on the crying. They do not agree on whose eyes were which.

The walk starts at the Vista do Rei viewpoint and follows a section of the rim, lakes on one side and the Atlantic on the other, toward Boca do Inferno, where the last stretch is short and steep. Then down to the village. On a clear day it is the best view on the island. On a cloudy one, which is often, the crater fills up like a bowl of milk.