delightful - We went on a partly cloudy, windy day with our guide, Joao. It was a delightful day from start to finish with many magical sights and a delicious lunch at a small restaurant sampling local wine and foods. Joao was a great storyteller …we were in capable hands…highly recommend this tour.

Add it to your itinerary! - Joao was an amazing tour guide! He was thoughtful, tailored information to our interests, and made us feel very comfortable and safe. Would highly recommend if you want to get off the beaten path and immerse yourself in incredible culture and nature.

We recommend this interesting tour with Joao - It was a wonderful tour to the hidden gems. Our guide, Joao DaCosta, showed us interesting parts of the island an the natur. He is a good entertainer and gives you useful informations.

rich Azorean experience.....gifted guide - We had booked the Hidden Gems tour of Sao Miguel with Joao of Pure Azores through Trip Advisor. Because we found him to be such an excellent tour guide on this tour, we subsequently also did the East and West tours of Sao Miguel with him as well. It was a very wise decision. Joao is a dedicated professional, very competent on the subject matter, friendly, courteous and with superb interpersonal skills. His tours are presented in a varied & interesting way. He puts a lot of thought and creativity into each full day tour. He has an excellent memory for detail and is very observant of his “guests” , making each person feel included & an important part of the group. Given the narrow and winding roads that were travelled, we also greatly appreciated his impressive driving skills. Always calm, very organized, totally reliable, it was Joao that made our trip to São Miguel a total success. We were so fortunate to have crossed paths with him early in our journey. Joao is a gem!

Highly recommend this company - João is an excellent guide, kind and good humoured. Full of knowledge about the island and the stops on the tour. Also a great photographer! Highly recommend this tour and the company as this was my second tour with them.

Day tour on Sao Miguel Island. - The day was awesome!! The views were amazing and the lunch was so tasty and traditional Portuguese food. Our guide João was one of the best guides we’ve ever had. If you book a tour through Pure Azores Tours request Joao. 👍

Our best (high - yield) day on the island - Manuel and the hidden gems he shared so proudly and kindly with us were such a treat to see! Beautiful hidden waterfalls off the beaten path, basalt black rock columns at the beach, lighthouse view points where you share a view with the cows, black sand beaches, secret sources of naturally sparkling water, and it was just an all around perfect day. Manuel was very flexible about moving at our own pace and very knowledgeable about the island! Highly recommend him and in particular this tour. It was the best day of our whole week on the island.

Cool and adventurous day - We had a wonderful day exploring the hidden gems of São Miguel island together with local guide Cátia and our small group. The weather was quite bad and we missed one site because of a landslide, but these things happen in the nature and it had nothing to do with the organisation of the tour. Apart from that we were able to go and see all the waterfalls and viewpoints we had planned. For lunch we enjoyed a buffet of local drinks and dishes. Overall, we had a really cool adventurous day and would go again. In case you're easily discouraged by poor weather then best to save this tour for drier and sunnier months as this day involves more walking compared to the East and West tours of the island.

A blast - João is the absolute best tour guide. I had a full day of adventure packed with new locations, great food, good company, and lots of interesting facts about the azores. As someone who has been here, who has family here, it’s hard to surprise me but I had a fantastic time.

Hidden gems tour is an amazing tour when visiting Punta Delgada - This is the best tour I have ever done. Small group tour makes for a more personal experience. PureAzore tour that we experienced went out of their way to make the day memorable. Joao DaCosta was our guide. He is very knowledgeable. He told us history and stories of the places we visited along with stories of other locations. This tour takes you off the beaten path to less touristy places. As a 76 year old female, Joao made sure I got in and out of van easily. He made sure I was safe on all the walking up and down pathways. I love cows that are on this island, so he stopped so I could get a picture with a cow. We had a fabulous lunch that was included. It was a fabulous buffet with all you could eat and drink. Lunch was in a quaint little coastal village. You would not experience this on your own. We saw lots of waterfalls, flowers, beautiful coastal views. We went to a small village that once was popular with nobility. There were thermal baths. He told stories about royalty that came there to experience the thermal waters. We went to an old mill by the sea. We heard stories about an older gentleman Joao had met that owned the mill. We learned the owner had carried sacks of flour on his back up a very steep incline. Joao never rushed us to move on. Everything was at a leisurely pace. This is a must do tour. It is only done a few days every week.