The Ever-Changing Landscape of Terceira

Terceira is the 2nd most populated island in the Azores with about 54,000 residents. The island is 30 km long and 18 km wide. It was the third island to be discovered and a settlement was started in 1449. When the New World was being explored, this island became a stop over for sailors going to the Americas and India.

Terceira is different than the other islands we have visited. The landscape changes quite dramatically in very short distances. Old volcanoes, green pastures with lava stone walls, tall Japanese cedar trees, flower-lined roads, grottoes on the shoreline with huge volcanic rocks, ferns and lichens, giant palm trees, and so on. It is a very beautiful small island with several very good paved roads and even more secondary crushed lava roads in the interior. It is a great place to just get lost as you’ll always find your way out, eventually.

As I mentioned earlier, many houses were destroyed during the 1980 earthquake. What we saw on our drives were either new modern houses, ruins of houses or old houses that were fixed up. Some of the houses like the one we were in, had huge cracks in them and had become structurally unsound. A lot of work had to be done to fix them up again.

As you may notice, there are also a lot of cows on this island. More than people. While we were driving, we had to be mindful that around a bend there could be cows on the road.

The climate and lush vegetation with few temperature extremes (15 C to 25 C) make it an inexpensive place to raise cattle. The farmers don’t need buildings to protect them from extremes in weather. Because of the mild climate and good pastures the cattle live longer and have few diseases.

The majority of cattle we observed as we drove around were Holstein-Friesians, Jerseys and Brown Swiss. We did see Angus also. The majority of the milk is sold as fresh milk, followed by cheese (Edam) and butter. Dairy products are exported from the island, mainly to the mainland of Portugal.

The following photos show some of the beautiful ‘changing’ scenery, and a few cows, that we saw during the week that we stayed on Terceira.Read more