For our final day on the island, we headed to the east coast. First we stopped at a tea plantation that is located on the north east coast. This island has the only two tea plantations in Europe for industrial production. Tea has been grown on the island for 200 years. The climate on the north part of the island is perfect for growing the tea. The common pests of tea plants can’t survive the humid weather so they don’t need to use any chemicals or insecticides to protect the plantations. We visited the Gorreana factory which has been opened since 1880’s. You can do a little tour to see the machinery and watch the production. They mainly export to Portugal, Germany and the US. The plantations are very scenic with the rows of green plants and the Atlantic in the background. Not to mention, it smells good too.

From there, we continued driving to viewpoints along the east coast until we reached the town of Povação in the southeastern corner. This was the town that people first settled to in the 1400’s. It used to be the capital of the island until a large earthquake destroyed the town. The island has been pretty to explore and the roads are very easy to navigate. We fly tomorrow to Lisbon for our final day before flying back to the States.

We spent the day driving the north and central part of the island. Since we knew today would be partly cloudy, we didn’t want to go to the most scenic site today. We had sun, clouds and even a little rain today but the humidity kept it warm. The island is so green and lush. There were volcanoes around the island which created beautiful lakes and mountains. There are also a lot of thermal baths and we even saw one mud bath that had a lot of people in it.

We started off by going to a view point of a Lagoa do Fogo which was a bit foggy. We then drove to a town called Ribera Grande and walked around there. In another town, later in the day, there was also a botanical garden that I had to check out. This was actually where the mud bath was but there were also plenty of other things to walk around and see. I think I just missed some of the plants that were past their peak bloom and I was just a little early for the hydrangeas to be in full bloom. But it was still a nice walk. It was a nice first day driving around the island.

And then I got stuck in a traffic jam on the way back to the hotel. But I don’t mind going slow when I can look at the ocean in the background.