JO KESSEL and her family island hop around the unspoilt North Atlantic and discover dramatic volcanic landscapes, abundant wildlife and quaint towns Whale of a time, quite naturally

THERE IS something undeniably romantic about island-hopping, a real sense of adventure and exploration. So when my family and I head to the Azores, a nine-strong Portuguese archipelago in the Atlantic, we feel as intrepid as legendary Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, setting off to discover the New World.

Reaching this subtropical cluster of volcanic islands sitting on the mid-Atlantic fault line used to be via Lisbon but now there are direct flights from the UK to the Azores' largest island S£o Miguel between April and October.

Aerial views from the plane reveal lush, undulating hills pocked with vast craters created by ancient volcanic eruptions. My husband and I are rendered monosyllabic: "Wow."

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We base ourselves in S£o Miguel's capital Ponta Delgada. The town is an attractive huddle of cobbled lanes, houses with black-and-white fa§ades and quaint shops which are set back from the harbour.

Our hotel, the Royal Garden, serves delectable breakfasts (a mouth-watering assortment of exotic jams, cheese and indigenous corn-based sweet breads) and has excellent facilities. So good that it's hard to drag nine-year-old twins Nathalie and Gabriel and Hannah, six, from the indoor and outdoor swimming pools set in Japanese gardens.

Eventually we do and take our hire car to explore the Antonio Borges botanical gardens filled with gnarled magic trees to climb and secret caverns to discover.

Plus, there's a near-perfect beach, a vast curve of unblemished charcoal sand in neighbouring village S£o Roque. It's deserted with water warm enough for bathing, even in late October.

We head to Lake Furnas in the island's interior past verdant vegetation dense with palms, bamboo, violet hydrangeas and a host of endemic flora and fauna.

Springs, bubbling mud pits and a By the lake are smoking hot springs, bubbling mud pits and a natural thermal pool.

There's also another local phenomenon called cozido, a stew cooked for six hours underground in the baking geothermic earth. Chefs pull casserole pots from the steaming soil, hastily transporting them to nearby Terra Nostra Garden Hotel to serve for lunch. Ingredients include veal, pork, chicken, sausage, cabbage, potatoes and carrots. The meat falls from the bone and it's the heartiest, most eco-friendly stew imaginable.

Chicken, sausage, cabbage, potatoes and carrots.

In the Fifties locals literally saw the island grow flight to sister island Faial which suffered an earthquake as recently as 1998.

In the Fifties before their eyes when submarine volcanic eruptions created the Capelinhos peninsula, a 1.5-mile addition to the island. Its black ash lunar hills are tacked on to the pre-existing verdant land.

Belying Faial's turbulent geology, our Hotel do Canal is blissfully tranquil. It's on the waterfront of capital Horta's picturesque marina but with a rather alarming notice in the elevator: "In case of fire or earthquake please do not use."

Belying Faial's turbulent geology, our Hotel do Canal is blissfully tranquil. It's on the waterfront of capital Horta's picturesque marina but with a rather alarming notice in the elevator: "In case of fire or earthquake please do not use."

Colouring books and crayons given to the children are a nice touch and burgundy carpets in our family suite are offset by gleaming mahogany furniture.

There's an impressive view of Pico, home to Portugal's highest mountain.

The next morning Nathalie spots dolphins as we take the ferry to Pico. As well as being home to plenty of marine life, including whales, Pico is a major wine producer.

Its centuries-old system of viniculture, a vast, sloping, geometric network of rocky walls dividing tiny fields, is a Unesco World Heritage Site. Holes in the black basalt walls are perfect for our own impromptu treasure hunt. My husband Marc runs ahead, concealing toffees in the cracks and crevices.

The children walk miles, scouring for golden wrappers. We stand at the bottom, chewing sweets and watching pale turquoise waves crash against the lava coastline.

THAT evening, back on Faial, a half-litre carafe of red Pico wine goes down nicely with the two-course prato do dia (menu of the day) at the unassuming Delta Caf© on Vasco da Gama street (yes, Vasco's everywhere).

The home-made chicken soup followed by pork chops with rice is not only tasty and plentiful but, at £4.20 per head, it's a steal.

We head back to Sao Miguel where tea (labelled cha) served at breakfast hails locally from the tiny mountain village of Gorreana.

It's the only tea plantation in Europe and inside its working factory "hand-picked" takes on a whole new meaning. We join nimble-fingered workers round a table sifting through mounds to discard rogue leaves before tasting fragrant black, green and orange brews.

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The Azores offer a simple, back-to-basics holiday where nothing feels manufactured as most attractions are natural wonders and free to the public. Each island has something unique and the cozido rates as our most memorable meal ever.

While we might not have matched the 15th-century Portuguese explorers, we certainly had great fun trying.

GETTING THERE

Sunvil (0208 758 4722/sunvil.co.uk) offers four nights at the Royal Garden Hotel (royalgardenhotelazores.com) and three nights at the Hotel do Canal (bensaude.pt) from £3,546 (family-of-four sharing), B&B.

Price includes return flights with SATA International (0844 482 1678/sata.pt) from Gatwick to Sao Miguel, inter-island flights and seven days car hire. Portuguese tourism: 0207 201 6666/ visitportugal.com