Graciosa Island

Graciosa is the second smallest island in the Azores and one of the flattest, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve with a landscape of cultivated fields, windmills, and a central caldera containing the Furna do Enxofre, a large lava tube with an underground lake of sulphur-bearing water accessible by staircase. The island's pace and scale are compact enough to explore by bicycle, and its whitewashed villages with tiled buildings reflect a traditional Azorean architectural character well preserved by its relative isolation from mass tourism.