"Terceira: Beautiful Island" a Ilha Terceira Travel Page by J_Antunes

Terceira (in English Third) was the third island of Azores to be discovered and that is where its name come from. It might seem like the people never cared about the place and never bother to give it a proper name. Maybe the place is really boring, uninteresting, uncharacteristic or the people in there have just no imagination whatsoever.
If that is your idea, think again...

Terceira is the third largest island in Azores (again number 3) with 402 sqm but the second in population with 55.000 inhabitants. Being one of the biggest in either population and area makes it especially attractive to visit. There are plenty of natural swimming pools, wonderful landscapes, the charming city of Angra, the caves, the belveders.... and yes, some cows, that tend to cross your path once in the while.

Location is everything in todays world and the same happened hundreds of years ago. Being in the middle of the sea between the americas and Europe made of Terceira a perfect position for a nice scale in the trip between continents. The safe harbour of Angra, protect from the pirates by powerful fortresses made the city prosper and become the wonder that is today.
But even nowadays Terceira is a major strategic location. One of the main american bases in the world, Lajes, is located in the North part of the island. So don't find it strange to hear some american frequencies while travelling by car or in finding some american style coffees. The base was created to fuel the aircrafts that couldn't make the trip between the US and the rest of the world. It was also the place of the Summit that forged the war against Saddam Hussein. Bush, Aznar, Blair and Barroso (hey who is that?) set here the attack on Iraq. The base is aledgedly used as scale in many flights with the destination Guantanamo. Many stories of the cold war and the war against terror are hidden in those walls.