Azores Bus Independent transit guide
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Bus guide

Faial · the sailors’ harbour

Horta

Farias publishes Faial’s bus network and schedule area and says contactless bank cards — physical or digital — can be tapped to pay onboard all its buses and at ticket offices. Open the network before booking accommodation outside Horta, and match the service day as well as the route.

By bus

Getting to Horta

Farias publishes Faial’s bus network and schedule area and says contactless bank cards — physical or digital — can be tapped to pay onboard all its buses and at ticket offices. Open the network before booking accommodation outside Horta, and match the service day as well as the route.

  • The operator’s network and schedules page is the live source for Faial.
  • Contactless bank-card payment is advertised by the operator onboard and at offices.
  • Check the service day: weekday and weekend patterns are not interchangeable.

Source: Farias: Faial network, schedules, support, and payment guidance

Open Farias network and schedules

Before you go

Times change. Take them with you.

Published departures shift with the season. Azores Bus keeps the current timetable in your pocket.

Azores Bus — app coming soon

Get notified at launch Open Farias network and schedules
Horta marina at sunrise on Faial with boats moored in the foreground
Photo: Jules Verne Times Two, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)

Worth your time

What Horta does best

Horta’s marina is a guestbook painted in concrete: thousands of murals left by ocean-crossing crews who believe leaving one is the only way to avoid bad luck at sea. Behind the harbour, Faial rolls up through hydrangea hedges to a silent caldera; across the channel, Pico’s cone owns the sky. Faial’s buses are run by Farias, which publishes its network and schedules and advertises contactless card payment onboard.

The painted marina

Wander the quays and read the Atlantic’s traffic in paint: boat names, crews and crossings from every sailing nation. Superstition keeps the tradition alive — and the artwork fresh.

Peter Café Sport

The sailors’ institution since 1918 — gin tonics downstairs, a scrimshaw (engraved whale-tooth) museum upstairs, and the unofficial post office of the mid-Atlantic.

Capelinhos

At Faial’s western tip, the volcano that erupted out of the sea in 1957 left a bare ash headland beside a half-buried lighthouse — one of the most affecting landscapes in the islands.

Good to know

  • The Horta–Madalena ferry crossing to Pico is short, but it is Atlânticoline’s timetable — plan it as its own leg.
  • Faial is the “blue island”: hydrangea season peaks in July and lines whole roadsides.
  • The caldera viewpoint at Cabeço Gordo is weather-dependent — take the first clear window you get.

Keep exploring

The green and blue crater lakes of Sete Cidades seen from the caldera rim São Miguel · twin crater lakes Sete Cidades The green and blue lakes in a drowned volcano — the single most famous view in the Azores. Plan the ride Steam rising from the fumaroles of Furnas on São Miguel São Miguel · volcanic spa valley Furnas Steaming fumaroles, iron-orange thermal pools and a stew cooked underground — the Azores at their most volcanic. Plan the ride Lagoa do Fogo crater lake surrounded by green slopes on São Miguel São Miguel · fire lake Lagoa do Fogo A pristine crater lake in a nature reserve on the island’s central ridge — wild, protected, and worth the effort. Plan the ride