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Pico · vineyards under the volcano

Madalena & Pico

Portugal’s highest mountain, UNESCO lava-walled vineyards, and an island bus operator with genuinely good tools.

By bus

Getting to Madalena & Pico

UTC Pico publishes schedules, fares, a network map, route and stop views, a near-me tool and real-time information from one official site — the most complete operator toolkit in the islands. Choose your travel day and direction in the tool itself rather than trusting a copied table.

  • Pick the day and direction on the official schedule — service patterns differ.
  • The network map shows which coast of the island each route serves.
  • Tariff information is published on the operator’s own fare page.

Source: UTC Pico: Pico schedules, network map, routes, stops, and real-time tools · UTC Pico: Pico tariffs

Open UTC Pico

Before you go

Times change. Take them with you.

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

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Open UTC Pico
A white lighthouse behind a low lava-stone wall on red volcanic ground, with the green cone of Pico mountain rising into cloud behind it.
The lighthouse at Ponta de São Mateus with the mountain behind, in the municipality of Madalena. UTC Pico publishes schedules, stops and real-time tools for the island; Madalena is the ferry town facing Faial. Photo: José Luís Ávila Silveira/Pedro Noronha e Costa, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Worth your time

What Madalena & Pico does best

Pico is the Azores at full contrast: a black island of lava fields where generations walled in tiny vineyard plots against the salt wind — a landscape so singular UNESCO listed it — all beneath the perfect 2,351-metre cone of Portugal’s highest mountain. Madalena, the ferry town facing Faial, is its gateway, and UTC Pico runs the island’s buses with route, stop and real-time tools that set the standard for the archipelago.

  1. The vineyard grid

    Around Madalena and Lajido, thousands of lava-stone corrals (currais) protect vines from wind and spray — a hand-built landscape centuries in the making. The wine, verdelho above all, is having a renaissance.

  2. The mountain

    Climbing Pico is a permit-and-register affair from the Casa da Montanha, typically taking a full day or a night ascent for sunrise above the clouds. On the clearest days the summit view takes in the neighbouring central-group islands.

  3. Whales offshore

    Pico’s deep offshore waters made it a whaling island; today the boats carry watchers. The old whaling museum in Lajes tells the earlier story honestly.

Good to know

  • The Madalena–Horta ferry is Atlânticoline’s timetable — treat it as a separate booking, not a bus connection.
  • Wine tastings around Madalena are walkable or a short ride from the ferry — the easiest car-free outing on the island.
  • The mountain makes its own weather; book flexible if the summit is the goal.

While you’re there Pico’s deep offshore waters made it a whaling island; today the boats carry watchers instead. See whale & dolphin watching trips

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