San Miguel 2025

Day 6: July 3

Pineapple plantation - Gorreana tea factory - Santa Barbara beach

San Miguel 2025

Itinerary

Today we have a lot planned! :)

We’re starting with the pineapple plantation.

Here’s how it was: pineapples were grown in greenhouses on the outskirts of Ponta Delgada.
And, I think, to improve their earnings a little, the plantation came up with the idea of opening access for tourists.

Several greenhouses are open, and you can go in and see how pineapples grow.

Admission is free, but there is a café where you can (for quite a lot of money :) try pineapple, coffee, and pastries.

In a small “garage-like” room, they show a short film about the plantation.

I was impressed that the plantation is already more than a hundred years old!

And even more impressive was that it takes 2 years to grow a pineapple!

Pineapple greenhouses

You can go into several greenhouses. There are little pineapples! :)

A little café. Lots of people.

We tried pineapple. Not bad. But in Thailand, it was better :)

***

Next, we head to the Gorreana tea factory.

Interestingly, it is currently the oldest (founded in 1883) and only working tea plantation in Europe.

Admission is also free here. You can freely walk around the tea plantations.

You are allowed into almost all the rooms at the factory.

There is also a café with beautiful views, where you can enjoy tea and pastries.

Tea plantation. In the background, the white factory building is visible.

Here the leaves are steamed (part of the process for green tea)

Drying room. The factory smelled so nice!

After we had tea (we didn’t really like it) with pastries (we forgot to take a photo :), we head on to Santa Barbara Beach.

The beach is incredibly beautiful. I really liked it.

The waves are quite big, but we still managed to swim.
And how nice it was to walk on the warm sand!

Santa Barbara Beach

And when it got dark, we went to look for the owl that lives in our tree. And we found it! :)