Charming Blue

Art, music and the Atlantic give this small Vila do Porto hotel its character. Opened in 2016, Charming Blue Hotel occupies the Monteiros House and combines modern accommodation with writing, painting and sculpture woven into the spaces. It is a place for divers who want a proper base in town rather than an isolated resort built around a timetable of organised entertainment.

The scale is manageable, with 15 rooms, an outdoor pool and a garden for the quieter parts of the day. English, Spanish and Portuguese are spoken by the hotel team, so you can sort out the practical details without resorting to underwater hand signals at reception. Families are welcome too, and children of any age can stay.

You are in Vila do Porto, on Santa Maria in Portugal's Azores, with the hotel set by the sea and in the heart of the town. The address is Rua Teófilo de Braga, close enough to local life that you can reach Mesa d’Oito Restaurante in roughly 0.04 miles and Núcleo Sportinguista Mariense in around 0.01 miles. That is useful when you have returned from the water, changed, and decided that cooking is an activity best left to somebody else.

The Dalberto Pombo Environmental Interpretation Centre is about 0.02 miles away, while the Reserva Florestal de Recreio de Valverde is around 0.7 miles from the hotel. For a longer outing, the walk to the protected area around the Monumento Natural da Pedreira do Campo do Figueiral e Prainha is about 1.3 miles. Santa Maria is known for its white-sand beaches, distinctive chimneys and drier, warmer weather within the Azores.

For two divers sharing a room, the Superior Double or Twin Room is the more comfortable choice if you prefer a little extra space around bags, clothes and the general debris produced by a day in neoprene. Twin beds are available in the double-or-twin categories, which can be more practical than negotiating one large bed when both of you are up early for different reasons.

Solo travellers have a choice of single-room layouts, with either twin or double beds. Some rooms look towards the sea or the pool, so the view depends on the category you choose; the room cards below the text are the place to compare them. Every room has air conditioning, a private bathroom, a wardrobe, television with cable channels and free WiFi throughout the property.

The air conditioning matters when you return warm, salty and ready to collapse horizontally. The pool views may give you something to look at while drying off, while the sea-facing rooms bring the Atlantic into the room rather than leaving it entirely to the day's plans. Non-smoking rooms and a lift keep the basics straightforward.

Breakfast is included and served as a continental buffet, giving you the sort of uncomplicated start that works before a dive: coffee, food, and no need to construct a meal from whatever survived in your luggage. The hotel restaurant is Mesa d’Oito, open for dinner and set in the heart of Vila do Porto.

Its cooking covers international, European, Portuguese and Mediterranean styles, with vegetarian-friendly, vegan and gluten-free options. The restaurant has a family atmosphere and a history within the building, so dinner is more than a plate placed in front of you before the lights go out. It also means you can eat on site without turning the evening into an expedition.

There is one bar, attached to the restaurant, and it stays available throughout the day. That covers the useful sequence rather well: breakfast before the boat, dinner when you are properly hungry, and a drink in between while your body remembers what it did underwater.

The outdoor swimming pool is available to all guests, which gives you an easy way to loosen up without committing to another serious outing. The garden adds a little outdoor space for sitting down, drying off and doing absolutely nothing productive. After a full day in the Atlantic, that last option deserves respect.

If your legs still have an argument to make, cycling and hiking are available in the area, with canyoning also listed among the land activities. The nearby Valverde recreational forest and the protected landscapes around Santa Maria give those plans some substance beyond walking in a loop around the hotel.

For families, the hotel welcomes children of any age and can provide a cot for an infant. The pool, garden and town setting make the place workable for mixed groups, while the restaurant keeps the evening simple when not everyone has spent the day underwater.

Santa Maria Airport is about 1.9 miles away. From the airport, the hotel can be reached by taxi or car; the journey is around five minutes by taxi or ten minutes by car. If you are driving, free public street parking is available nearby and does not require a reservation.

Check-in runs from 14:00 to 20:00, while check-out is from 08:00 to 12:00. Those times are worth keeping in mind if your flight lands late or your final morning starts with a dive rather than a leisurely breakfast. A lift, room service, free WiFi and laundry service cover the useful day-to-day details, and laundry is available as a chargeable service.

The hotel is non-smoking and does not accept pets. Cash is not accepted, so plan to use a card for your hotel account and meals. The reception has no stated age restriction for check-in, and the team speaks English, Spanish and Portuguese.