São Filipe

São Filipe is the main town of Fogo and stands on a cliff above a beach of black volcanic sand, with the cone of the volcano rising behind it to nearly three thousand metres. Its old quarter keeps sobrados, two-storey colonial merchant houses with wooden balconies and inner courtyards, in better condition than anywhere else in the islands. Fogo grows the country's best coffee on the volcano's flanks and makes a red wine in the crater itself. The town is the starting point for everything on the mountain. The town is the island's port and airstrip, so every arrival passes through it.