Atlantis - Azores - Açores

A legend about the Azores relates that these islands (among the youngest on earth) are nothing less than the tips of the highest mountains of the now sunken continent of Atlantis. Proof of the tumultuous demise of Atlantis, says the legend, is the violent volcanic activity which has always characterised the Azores and which can still be experienced today on some of the islands. Although this is just a myth, when I visited the Azores, I still found it fascinating to travel around and spot, off in the distance, the white vapours of fumaroles rising from the wooded hills and even from among the houses and streets of certain towns.