So grateful for our daughter (and boyfriend) who worked hard to find the stuff we enjoy doing. One of Maris’ friends who works at a bar/restaurant and introduced to some new popular drinks. Aperol plus beer (new kind of spritz). Also there is a liquer made of artichokes—much easier than scraping teeth on leaves.So at this restaurant (with homemade pasta) you chose your wine by pointing the bottles to what you wanted then you handed it to the waiter who brought you a couple to try. More productive then other spin the bottle games! The waiter told us to trust him….So if I had to be in the doghouse….this could be a good choice.
I am a bit reluctant to write this blog because I have a hard time not being honest. This is an extraordinarily beautiful really sort of magical place but I hate to encourage more tourism that might spoil it.
Love the mosaics in the subways…..
We arrived after a great visit with Maris and Gabe filled with food, music, drink and lots and lots of walking (good prep for Europe) in Brooklyn. Always wonderful to wander around and get to catch up with their busy lives. Maris put together a terrific itinerary and Gabe arranged for us to see the Cults at Warsaw. We have been missing getting pierogis at Ukrainian Christmas in SHingle Springs—-nice to get a plateful here (a former Polish Community Center now a concert/events venue). Check out the Cults on spotify—good music.
Beautiful to watch a city waking up ….…and fortunately the town had a lot of benches for napping. A good place for a brief bout of homelessness…..
We arrived in Sao Miguel, the largest of the Azore Islands, at about 6 AM, just a 5 hour butt bruising flight from Brooklyn . After 3 hours of tumultuous sleep, we got in line for our car —only to learn that it would not be available until 12. The best option seemed a cab ride to the city center where we wandered around for 5 hours until we were able to get a rental car. I was impressed by Brant’s ability to stay awake while driving to the other end of the island to our hotel. We hoped for an early check in but sadly no…..
I drank a lot of coffee and we stopped at a “Snack Shop” where Brant ordered Conger Stew for 8 euros. Yup that’s a cross section of a giant eel—-still pretty delicious at 11 am, but a bit larger portion than expected.
This is just a remarkably beautiful place. It is a bit like Big Sur mixed with beautiful villages like those in the Greek Islands and Ireland so with varied architecture, Best of all was the vegetation that had the lush green of Kauai and Ireland….and my favorite: New England style hydrangeas everywhere.
Looks a bit like Big Sur in the spring right?Brant will probably not appreciate me posting this but I think it’s hilarious. We arrived at the hotel at 2;30 and asked for early check in but she declined and asked us to wait until 3. So here is Brant patiently (?) waiting. At 3;01 he walked back to the counter and she handed him the key that had been sitting out on the counter. Can’t complain though. It was a beautiful room and after a 11/2 hour nap we were ready to explore.
While this is certainly an area of tourism it did not feel like it. No signs, no hawkers, but there were free National parks and hot springs at the beach. Easy to navigate but curvy roads. We spent 2 nights in a hotel at the north end of the hotel then 2 nights in the south. It seems most folks stayed in the center and did day trips but I always like places best when everyone leaves for the day.
This beach was right next to our hotel as well as a beautiful public pool and a small marina. No charge for the pool or palapas.This was on the other side of the street from the beach. Note the bright light on the beach and the dark clouds here. After that we walked into town and had an amazing dinner and watched and unusual procession with a beautiful band. I hope I wasn’t filming a funeral procession….. hmmmThe music bounced off the walls…talented musicians that then marched through the town and past our hotel…nice to crawl into bed after that.This is another public pool that includes fresh seaweed. See that wave? Yup it’s coming right into the pool—-a natural pool. The water was a pleasant temp.Lots of Rainbows here but we had very little rain. Is it me or does this look dangerous? These gates are in main town of Punta Delgada. I grew up right next to the town of Fall River, Mass which I knew had lots of great Portuguese food (that I loved). I now know that the town is 43% Portuguese. And from Anthony Bourdaine’s program (which was excellent) I learned that nearly all are from the Azores who have a different cuisine from the rest of Portugal. These gates used to be attached to the city walls that are long gone. There is a replica of them built in Fall River Mass to honor their Azoreans. Note the intricate black and white walkways….they are everywhere….…built apparently by these guys with a chisel and a hammer….…from this pile of rubble. (When you are jet lagged and wasting time, it is amazing what seems interesting)A short hike to these pretty waterfalls and great place to soak our feet. We met a group of young canyoneerers on the way up who encouraged us to jump in for a swim…a good idea but we just soaked our feetWe did however jump in here for a swim. I believe Brant is questioning the wisdom of paying 14 dollars to swim in a pool that looks like a muddy Tennessee lake that I always refused to swim in. But this one has curative minerals in it—-it even has iron that changes your pure white bathing suit to a rich rusty color. (There are warning signs).Along with the hot springs are acres of manicure gardens. We walked for an hour and still saw only a quarter of them. (Of course with our now pain free joints we could walk even faster)Here we are (yes I know my shirt is not buttoned correctly) on a 4 person zodiac tour of Islet of Vila de Franco (or something like that). It is an islet that is actually 3/4 of the top rim of a volcano. The other 1/4 is an opening to a lagoon. Only 400 people per day get to go into the lagoon and we did not make the cut. Instead the young man piloting the boat took this picture of the 2 of us and said it was actually 3 in the pic. Check out the rock formation above our heads. BUT those who got to go in the lagoon did not get to go through that tiny passageway where the arrow is at unexpected speed and tilt! Moral of the story: reserve your lagoon tickets months in advance, or trust young people to show you a good time!This is the friend of the young man piloting our boat (no place for him to sit). He holds the Portuguese record for Marlin—-he caught one over a 1,000 pounds—-1.5 hours to bring it in. I loved his Tshirt—made me think of LB and he is ready to come on down to fish.The water was beautifully clear but the waves made it a bit tricky for him to punch the little zodiac into the cave. We also could have snorkeled but we opted against pulling on our wet rusty bathing suits. The young couple from the Dolomites with us did jump in and had a great time seeing a moray eel and some “Nemo” fish as he explained to me. Just loved the colors in this pic. And the waves seemed much larger than this pic shows. (In fact I kind of questioned the wisdom of being in the zodiac especially when they cancelled all the kayaking for the day due to the rough waters.When you get up in the morning, open the curtains, and this is what you see….well you just know it’s going to be a good day!I took this pic after we got out of these seaside thermal pools. We were in a bit of a rush to get in before too many people arrived for the day and it appeared it was gearing up for a good rainstorm. Brant found this mentioned on google maps and he timed it to be low outgoing tide as this is when its warmest and safest. I know it looks a bit odd but it was a really wonderful group of mainly young people all relaxing together. It appeared to be mainly Portuguese. With large waves you could grab a rope to keep from getting pulled away from the shore. While we were soaking the biggest rainstorm of the Azores struck. Ah well, we were already wet….so we just enjoyed the warm water and hoped our phones were ok. We got out when the rain stopped and then many people began to arrive (who had probably been waiting for the rain to stop). Besides keeping the crowds down we got yet another rainbow…. (The sopping wet clothes were not that easy to get back on)We felt like we were back home in LB when these cows crossed the road.I loved this fixer upper but Brant wouldn’t let me contact the agent.Plenty of vegan/vegetarian food as well as a bacon double patty burger here at this food truck hundreds of 5 star reviews—only 5 stars. It’s run by a jolly guy that has traveled the world speaks multiple languages (put to good use while we watched him take orders). BUT—note while the name of the burger is in English , the contents in it are listed in Portuguese. These are grilled limpets—yes, essentially big fat juicy barnacles…they were chewy and the butter garlic and lemon coating them was delicious,So this a popular tourist site. It is an abandoned hotel with terrific views of a lake. People have tagged it and love climbing into up and flying drones from the top. More our speed, is this beautiful park with 4 waterfalls, a water mill and a million hydrangeas.So this is view where we ate our famous food truck burgers. I guess if we had climbed up the abandoned hotel we could have had our burgers with an even better view from a moss covered graffitied hotel room. The lake is inside a volcanic crater. The last time it blew up was in the 1400s but still seems not ideal spot for this town? Note that we are in the sunshine with hydrangeas that must be in basic soil and there is rain storms going across the lake. There is a rim trail that we did a short piece of—-more when we return.
I TOOK WAY TOO MANY HYDRANGEA PICTURES—YOU ARE LUCKY THAT I’M INCLUDING JUST A FEW… I learned that the reason for all the hydrangeas in New England, is because the mariner’s wives brought seeds across the pond many years ago to remind them of their home. So glad they did….
And deep blue is my favorite…..and lots of morning glory vines mixed in with hydrangeas… (that is the crater wall in the background)This one blended in with ocean and the sky…..check out how huge the blooms are (patient husband)……and then I had this great idea….I would wear my hydrangea colored dress and find a big bank of hydrangeas to pose in front of….it worked!…so then that very night I find this in Pinterest….ugh…such a show off! And here I thought I was the first with this idea!This is a commercial traditional tuna fishing boat. (The crazy but nice zodiac guy offered to take us out to see it. You could tell it was not something he usually did . He thought it would be fine to leave the snorkelers for a few minutes—-we said, no way—so sheepishly he told them and they jumped back in the boat and we took off). Seriously this is sustainable fishing at its best. They chum the waters through what looks like bilge pumps then they catch the tunas on those poles. (Note the water gets very deep, very fast here in the islands and they are home to the blue sharks, fastest sharks in the world).
And finally what we loved the best…the peaceful beauty of this place. Can’t wait to come back and explore the other islands. They say that Faisal is the blue island because it has the most hydrangeas. What?? More hydrangeas than Sao MIguel? Hard to imagine…we better fo check it out.
When I was about 8 or 10 I read about the Azores in my garage sale stack of National Geographic’s and have wanted to see them ever since—-a bucket list started at a young age, it was even better than I imagined.
Fabulous destination & your photos, journaling were tremendous, Wendy! Loved the incredible hydrangeas, the story of how they “migrated” to the States — and, your description of it all reminding you of a combo of Ireland-Big Sur! Thanks to both you and Brant for sharing the fun.
As a pilot during WWII my dad ferried C-47’s across The Pond, stopping in the Azores to refuel. They always intrigued me. Now, I understand.
Life's Been Good To Us So Far! 
what an amazing place. Looks like you guys didn’t up right too. Wow
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Wow! 😆😉 Morning glory-ous!
Fabulous destination & your photos, journaling were tremendous, Wendy! Loved the incredible hydrangeas, the story of how they “migrated” to the States — and, your description of it all reminding you of a combo of Ireland-Big Sur!
Thanks to both you and Brant for sharing the fun.
As a pilot during WWII my dad ferried C-47’s across The Pond, stopping in the Azores to refuel. They always intrigued me. Now, I understand.
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