The Azores sit alone in the mid-Atlantic, closer to nowhere than anywhere, and the isolation shows in the best ways. Pastures roll over collapsed calderas, hydrangea hedges divide the fields, and hot springs steam quietly at the edge of laurel forest older than the last ice age.

Our journeys move between two islands. On São Miguel we walk crater rims and cook lunch in volcanic steam at Furnas; on Faial we cross the caldera and spend time with the boatbuilders and whale-watchers of Horta, a harbour town that has greeted Atlantic sailors for five centuries.

The Azores were whaling islands within living memory. That history has turned, remarkably, into one of the world’s most respected whale research and watching communities — and time on the water with them is the heart of any visit.