Lagoa (Azores) - Tourism

Tourism

The municipality of Lagoa has many recognized natural environments and areas popular with tourists to the island of São Miguel. Its tourist ex-libris is the small resort hamlet of Caloura, nestled along the southern coast and separated from the neighboring community of Água de Alto. Although it does not include a beach, the sheltered coves and volcanic rock bays are popular with locals and tourists for the clear blue-green waters, a natural pool and fisherman's port, as well as a bar and esplanade. The area benefits from a favourable microclimate, that offers visitors the opportunity to swim in the transparent waters of its port which has earned the area a Blue Flag designation. Throughout the year there are diverse cultural events, the most relevant is the Festa do Pescador ("Festival of the Fisherman"), in addition to folklore festivals and nautical themed events, that attract local residents to the village. Access to Caloura is made by an ancillary connection to the regional road in Água de Pau.

In Água de Pau, from Pico da Figueira, the Monte Santo Outlook is popular with tourists for the panoramas of the municipality, and further above, along the Regional Road between Água de Pau and Ribeira Chã, the outlook of Pisão provides vistas of Caloura, Ribeira Chã and parts of the neighboring municipality of Vila Franca do Campo. Within the village, the Jardim dos Anjos, was begun during the 1970s and remodeled in 1991, and is a situated in front of the parochial church of Nossa Senhora dos Anjos.

In the civil parish of Santa Cruz, the Forest Park of Chã da Macela, located in the eastern foothills of Serra de Água de Pau, is a large park with endemic (laurel, heather, fir) and introduced species (cryptomeria, acacias, and pine). The Park of Convento dos Franciscanos is also an important tourist attraction in the parish.

The Praça de Nossa Senhora da Graça, a square in Lagoa is also another place of leisure that includes an open-air amphitheater, used in local cultural and recreational events. Similarly, the Largo de Ville Sainte Thérèse, in Rosário, was realized by contributions and partnerships signed in 1996 between the municipality and the Ville de Sainte Thérèse, in Canada: it symbolizes the friendship between the two communities.

The civil parish of Nossa Senhora do Rosário, is recognized for the Porto dos Carneiros, a small bay where the first settlers and fisherman disembarked; it is the original port where those colonists landed cattle and provisions for the original settlers. It location has been expanded and remodeled in the 20th century to both support the local community and to attract tourists to the Mercado de Peixe and restaurants along the port. The main attraction along the southern coast of Roário is the open-air Complexo Municipal de Piscinas (pool complex); situated along Rua Cidade de New Bedford, the complex combines natural, semi-olympic and children's artificial pools with infrastructures (an esplanade, changing rooms, bathrooms and parking facilities. It is large rocky outcropping that extends for 150 meters was reconstructed on December 26, 1996 after the original municipal pools were damaged during a winter tempest.