Furnas by Private Car: Terra Nostra or the Poça da Dona Beija

A private car, a local guide, and a day in Furnas, which sits inside a volcanic caldera and has the gardens, the lake and the hot water to go with it. The choice to make before booking is which thermal bath. Terra Nostra, with its two-hundred-year-old garden and its pool, or the Poça da Dona Beija. The Dona Beija has to be reserved online in advance, so it needs deciding in time. On the way there and back the car stops at places worth stopping at: the Pico do Ferro, where the whole Furnas volcano is visible with the lagoon and the village inside the caldera, and the Santa Iria viewpoint, 221 metres above the north coast. Gorreana is on the route as well, the oldest tea plantation in Europe, with the factory to walk through and the tea to taste. Furnas itself is one of the largest hydropolises in Europe: springs of different compositions coming up all over the village, and the secondary volcanic activity on show at ground level.