The Água Retorta circuit covers 5.1 kilometres around one of São Miguel’s easternmost villages. Nossa Senhora da Penha de França Church, built in the nineteenth century and incorporating an older tower, gives historical scale to the start. From the centre, the path quickly moves into pasture and farm accesses, revealing the close relationship between the settlement and the worked slopes around it.
The route alternates between open ground, woodland patches and hedges that protect fields from wind. Views extend over Água Retorta, inland peaks and, on clear days, Santa Maria on the horizon. Around Fagundas, a signed branch reaches a small waterfall, adding a damp passage to the rural mosaic. The stream and its banks interrupt the pattern of pasture without turning the walk into a solely forested route.
The return approaches the houses again, passing a former windmill and fountain before reaching the church. These modest features show how grain, wind and water contributed to local daily life. Rated medium and taking about two hours, the loop offers a concentrated reading of the village: religious heritage, farming, service tracks and maritime horizons. Its value lies in the continuity between inhabited landscape and productive land rather than in a single monumental destination.