São Cristóvão Viewpoint

The panorama is ocean and cliffs, with the swell close enough below to watch it break, and watching it is half the reason to stop. The bar and the restaurant stand at the viewpoint itself, not a walk from it: a small bar out in the open air, a larger room behind it with tables inside and more of them on the terrace, all of it turned towards the water. Drinks come out fast. Food is where the bill grows and the choice is thin, so what most stops amount to is a coffee or a beer with the cliffs in front of you.

• The food is the expensive part — main courses run 15–30 €, and the outside bar is the cheaper stop for a coffee or a beer.
• The menu is short on choice, and the kitchen takes 10–20 minutes; drinks come out straight away.
• Toilets: the nearest public ones are about 700 m from the viewpoint, and the nearest drinking water about 500 m.
• Children: the terrace suits them, and there is no walking involved in reaching it.

Everything happens at the roadside. The car parks sit within a few dozen metres of the railing, so there is no path to find and no walk in — you step out of the car and the cliffs are in front of you, which makes this an easy pull-in on a drive along the north of the island. Buses do not stop at the viewpoint; the nearest stops are out along the road.

Better: mid-morning, when the bar has just opened and spaces by the railing are easy to find.

Avoid: the evening, once the bar and the restaurant have closed for the day.

The whole of the view is ocean and cliff, and it needs daylight to be worth the turn-off; with the terrace shut there is nowhere to sit either.