Angra do Heroísmo

With its palaces and its fort - dated in the century XVI-, the city of Angra do Heroísmo has been classified by UNESCO as World Patrimony in recognition of its great beauty and interesting history. In the city we can visit great monuments, palaces convents and museums.

Angra do Heroismo: World Patrimony of the UNESCO

The first news known on the island is of 1495, date in that the infante Don Enrique authorized Jácome de Bruges to colonise these lands, raising the locality of Praia. But with the time, Cove was turned into the capital of Terceira, managing to be one of the most important ports of business in the commercial routes with the Indies.

A natural dock, of slightly less than one kilometre, closed by the volcanic greatness of Brazil and the isthmus, receive the city that owes its first name to the bay on the settles i and its surname to the queen Maria II, who rewarded the city with this name due to the fact that it took party in favour of the liberal ones, during the nineteenth-century civil wars.

Four kilometres of wall wrap this mount crowned by the fortress of San Juan Baptizer, named in the past, San Philip, for being constructed during the reign of Philip II, who joined the wreaths of Portugal and Spain.

Sea of the Azores that in another time was named, Island of Jesus Christ, took the current denomination of the ordinal number in which it was discovered.

Here, in a totally abrupt area, where still volcanoes that had not been completely extinguished, Angra exist has a recent black history. In New Year of 1980 an earthquake destroyed the city, destroying numerous buildings and causing the death to approximately sixty persons. In spite of the destruction, the inhabitants of the city have reconstructed the city following the original design. Its urban development tracing had not suffered modifications from the XVIth century. Curiously, still in the leaflets and books used an engraving of the XVIth century design.

Stand out a set of original buildings from the XVIIIth and XIXth centuries, which resemble the colonial houses of Brazilian San Salvador of Bay, city related with Angra In the whole city there are distributed a good number of religious and civil constructions, as the convents of San Francisco, Nuestra Señora de Concepcion, la Esperanza, the Palace Bettencourt or the former Episcopal palace.

One of the most emblematic points of the city is Porto de Pipas, place tied to develops its sailors of the city and key point of the history of the first settlers.