Simão Dias Natural Pool
Picture by Visit Azores
The island of São Jorge, in general, presents breathtaking landscapes for anyone who visits it. It is an island mainly made up of fajãs and cliffs with a significant altitude. We can say, in a playful tone, that it is an island of ups and downs.
It is in one of the nearly 70 fajãs that the island presents that we can find one of the most beautiful natural fish of Portugal – Poça Simão Dias. Located in Fajã do Ouvidor (parish of Norte Grande in the municipality of Velas), one of the largest lava fajãs on the north coast of the island of São Jorge. It is one of the most emblematic of the archipelago and is considered by many a true natural paradise.
The puddle is characterized by prismatic disjunctions in the cliffs that form it. This one that we can observe in the puddle is a great set of vertical basalt columns and its formation is explained by the contractions that were generated in the lava flows when they cooled down and later solidified the lava material.
Its high basalt cliffs allow the sea waves to lose their strength, but let their water enter thus forming a natural pool. The blue of the sea and the black of basalt work perfectly and allow the puddle to provide waters so crystalline that automatically invite to baths.
Simão Dias Natural Pool is the largest of the natural pools and is one of the places that most natural beauty transmits on the island of São Jorge.
