Hi there my Steemian friends and followers!
Welcome to my special weekly series called Beauties of Azores that was created by me to raise awareness of the extraordinary charm of a captivating Portuguese archipelago known as the Azores.
In one of the previous episodes of the series, I took you to beautiful Lagoa Azul and today, we will take a closer look at its twin lake - Lagoa Verde.
As you might know, Lagoa Verde means Green Lake in English and just like its blue twin, it is also situated in a huge crater of a dormant volcano right next to the picturesque little town of Sete Cidades in the northwestern part of the Sao Miguel island.
When I was writing the post about the Blue Lake, I didn´t know there was an interesting old legend explaining the origin of the lakes. Now I know so let me share the story with you in this episode.
The legend has it that ages ago, the area was ruled by a king who was a very strict father to his daughter, a beautiful young princess. The princess fell in love with a local shepherd and the couple wanted to get married. But when the king found out, he got very angry, expelled the poor shepherd and forbade the princess from seeing him ever again. Saddened by their destiny, the couple started to cry and they cried so much that their tears eventually formed two lakes. The young shepherd´s eyes were blue so his tears created the Blue Lake, while the princess´ green eyes gave the color to the Green Lake.
So that was the legend behind the creation of the two lakes but now some actual facts and numbers :) The Green Lake is significantly smaller than the Blue Lake, the whole loop around Lagoa Verde is approximately 4.5 km (2.8 mi) long.
However, don´t let relatively short distance fool you. To complete the entire circle, you will need some decent physical fitness as well as nimbleness and courage.
The first half of the loop is very easy and well suited to almost anyone as it takes places on a perfectly maintained, flat path with zero elevation difference. It´s the second part of the loop that is only recommended for experienced and trained hikers as includes parts where you will have to climb up rocks, navigate through tricky little paths around high cliffs, push your way through very dense (and wet) vegetation, get over shaky wooden footbridges etc.
Unfortunately, I don´t have any photos of the actual trail as it was covered with dense vegetation for the most part and the light conditions were thus very poor in there but I can confirm it really was not an easy hike at all. If you don´t want to get dirty and wet or if you are not sure about your hiking skills, you better stay in the first half of the loop which is very safe.
Since most people usually hang around the Blue Lake which is bigger and has more facilities around it, you can enjoy some really nice and peaceful views of the stunning landscape by the Green Lake, undisturbed by other visitors.
Unlike with Lagoa Azul, the water in Lagoa Verde is officially not suitable for swimming but as you can see in the photo above, it is still very clear. I think it may actually be just because of the greenish shade of the color that is caused by the higher presence of the water plants on the lake´s bottom. To me, even the Green Lake looked like a great place for wild swimming but sadly, I didn´t bring my swimwear with me and it also felt a bit cold for a swim so I didn´t try it.
Nevertheless, we did meet some guys who were having a real blast while swimming in Lagoa Verde and to our surprise, they even crawled out on the land to tell us more about how exciting it was :D
I hope you enjoyed this episode of my Beauties of Azores series that was dedicated to the enchanting volcanic lake known as Lagoa Verde. All of the photos featured in this post were taken by me.
If you want to learn more about this exquisite Portuguese archipelago and its charms, stay tuned for the next episodes of my Beauties of Azores series ;)
This post was created by me for the Steem blockchain exclusively.
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