About Cascata do Aveiro
Cascata do Aveiro could very well be the most significant waterfall on the island of Santa Maria in the Azores.
It features a drop that’s said to be between 70-120m tall (though its consensus height figure is probably more like 110m).
Indeed, we could easily see this waterfall towards the end of the road north of the village of Maia (in the civil parish of Santo Espirito), which seemed to be right against a churning Atlantic Ocean.
As you can see from the photos on this page, this waterfall had light flow during our late June 2024 visit.
In order to have perhaps a better experience than us, it would probably require a visit in the Spring though that’s contingent on the quantity of precipitation and how soon thereafter you do a visit.
Ilha Santa Maria is one of the drier islands on the Açores so even being here in the right season is no guarantee of having flow better than what we had experienced.
As for experiencing Cascata do Aveiro, we could already get pretty satisfactory looks at most of its towering drop right from the road, especially as it made its final descent towards the bridge over the Ribeira do Aveiro.
However, we also did a short walk roughly 300m (or 600m round-trip) from the end of the road to the base of the waterfall.
The walk featured a lot of duck and geese sitting and/or swimming in or around the Ribeira do Aveiro Creek as well as some relics from past attempts to tame the creek.
Right at the bottom of the Cascata do Aveiro was a fairly large plunge pool surrounded by nearly vertical cliffs (so rockfall danger is ever present here) that seemed quite inviting for a dip.
Cascata do Aveiro looked a bit shorter from this far up close, but a lot of that is from a combination of forced perspective as well as the fact that the cliffs did have some slope, especially towards the top (to obscure the upper parts).
Overall, we spent 45 minutes away from the car, which easily could have been much less time had we not lingered around taking pictures and skipping stones.
Authorities
Cascata do Aveiro is located on the island of Santa Maria of the Azores Autonomous Region of Portugal. It is managed by the Municipality of Vila do Porto. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try visiting the official Azores tourism website.
The Cascata do Aveiro Waterfall resides in the civil parish of Santo Espirito on the island of Santa Maria.
Since we stayed at the Hotel Santa Maria by the airport near the town of Vila do Porto, I’ll describe the driving directions from there.
So from the Santa Maria Airport, we followed the one-way roads back to the EN1-2A, then we drove south towards the town of Vila do Porto for about 2km.
At the roundabout, we then took the Avenida Santa Maria (2nd exit) for about 1.1km to the next major intersection, where we then turned left to resume driving on the EN1-2A.
We then followed the EN1-2A Road for the remaining 22km to its end just north of the village of Maia.
At the dead-end, the cul-de-sac was wide enough to use it for parking.
Overall, this drive should take under an hour though you do have to watch out for single-lane stretches, especially on the southeastern coastline part of this drive (especially in Maia).
For context, Santo Espirito is about 6km (about 15 minutes drive) south of São Lourenço and 15km (about 30 minutes drive) east of Vila do Porto.
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Long video showing the turbulent waves crashing into the mouth of the creek before walking past some ducks towards the bridge with a partial view of the falls from there
Brief right to left sweep along the road from some retaining wall before panning along the upper tiers of the waterfall
Right to left sweep from a lower position of the retaining wall showing the twisting nature of the uppermost tiers before going down the road for an even lower perspective of the falls
Bottoms up and back sweep starting with some rock skipping, then examining the circular cliff rim before panning down along the whole trajectory of the falls with ducks below, and finally another rock skipping
Serene back and forth sweep from the middle of the stream showing the extent of most of the height of the falls
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